


52 Weeks of Sam & Dean

by Tofu_is_amazing



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-14
Updated: 2016-11-28
Packaged: 2018-05-26 17:44:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 42
Words: 26,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6249448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tofu_is_amazing/pseuds/Tofu_is_amazing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a 2016 challenge between me (@whoaeasytiger) and innerglow (@buticancarryyou).</p><p>Every week we come up with a prompt that we both write about, trying to keep it under 1k. We've donned this our 'Epic Writing Battle' and have had tons of fun thus far! And we hope you have just as much fun reading them! <3</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Old stones

**Author's Note:**

  * For [innerglow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/innerglow/gifts).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Week #1 Prompt: Sam + Church

Old stones. Creamy white and polished by countless footprints and greedy tongues. Old bones. Ribs like lace columns rising in the air, serene and eternal. The church is bare and holds life on its walls. A symphony of plants where each flower is a note on a score that plays for the eyes more than the ears. Lilacs, azaleas, primroses, daffodils, pansies, periwinkles, forget-me-nots, colorful sharps and flats of a lonely ballad.

The doors close behind Dean once he’s stepped inside, leaving his pain and his shadow outside. There’s no space for them inside these walls. Painted glass windows let the light filter in like sunrays through thick foliage, springs and summers and autumns and winters all melted together in greens, pinks, reds and blues. A fluttering of wings, doves fly back to their nests under the roof, and oh Dean wishes he could stay here forever too, make his own nest in his brother’s ribcage, settle between the bones and wait until his heart beats in unison with Sam’s. Instead he walks down the aisle, baby boy footsteps and careful breaths. He sits on a pew covered in green moss, with his heart on his sleeve and his eyes on his knees.

Same ritual, same leaves covering the walls and windows, same lianas coiled like vegetal snakes around the pillars. This place is old, but not a ruin, and Dean feels like a newborn, hands too small and too clumsy to hold on to his own faith. Rosebuds fall like snowflakes on his eyelashes, paint sweet nothings on his eyelids. He sighs. _Come with all your shame._

This is sacred ground, he knows it, can see it in the lilies growing by the confessionals. Whispered disgraces fall on their petals like morning dew, and Dean feels his tongue getting heavier. Apologies are just mindless offerings, unforgettable memories of his mistakes. What can he say, when his words are sharp as swords and can shatter the whole place with just the right shape of tongue and teeth? The letters dance in front of his eyes, sacred becomes secret. The flowers grow, and beauty was born on repentant sinners’ lips. He doesn’t belong here, and yet he feels at home. Among the bones and the flowers, hurt and wounded, bruises that, in a place like this, are nothing but blackberries and blueberries growing out of his skin. Everything is soft, his violence, his guilt, his fear. He’s safe, he’s alive. He’s forgiven. _Oh Sam._

There are no Gods hiding between the blades of grass, no deity to worship with hymns. But there are blessings to receive, pollen like hosts melting on the tongue. Dean’s devotion rises toward the ceiling like the flickering flames of countless candles. On the altar a pulsing beat, red and warm like tulips blooming in the spring. _This is where you live_ , Dean thinks. Beat beat beat, it could mean anything, cotton candy words that stick to the tongue, and toothpaste kisses leaving the faint taste of mint on his lips.

 _Life_ , the letters dance again, _light_. Dean watches his prayers flutter around, butterflies with pale wings that dance in front of the windows, and absorb all the colors of the painted glass. They come back to settle on his shoulders, his knees, all a different shade of green, blue, yellow, and Dean is just a lost little boy, Peter Pan in his own Neverland. _I don’t want to grow up_. Protected by holy ground and eternal flowers, his shoulderblades itch to grow wings, a last blasphemy for the one who was once Heaven’s beloved weapon in a fight between Good and Evil. Sitting here surrounded by Sam’s faith, he can’t help but smile. Fools those who ever thought there was an ounce of darkness inside Sam’s body. All there is is light and roses dipped in gold. Heaven might be full of sinners with fading halos afterall.

Words finally tumble from Dean’s lips, hurried and quiet. “Thank you”. Two poppies grow in the delicate space between his fingers, fragile like silk paper and red like kiss swollen lips. _This is something to believe in_.


	2. Where the book begins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Week #2 Prompt: Scars

On his brother’s body, Dean reads their stories. Limbs and bones braided together ever since a night colored in reds and oranges decades ago. Their memories sink into the flesh, strips of life coated in red ink. He knows exactly how many scars Sam’s body sports, just like he knows the exact number of his own failures. Maybe it’s all the same thing.

Like a blind man, Dean reads with his fingertips, deciphers the words written in Braille by sharp claws, yellowed fangs, silver bullets. Hips, arms, legs, all covered with Death’s little kisses. In the hollow of Sam’s back, Dean’s hands start to shake. The scar left by the rusty knife is long gone, but the one left by the betrayal flourished in the tender skin, feeding off Sam’s faith and disappointed hopes.

The scars appear and disappear, drawn on the bodies like names in the sand, condemned to disappear with the rising tide, ephemeral butterflies afraid of dusk. Dean doesn’t care about those. They live their honeymoon on Sam’s skin, thrive for some time, but soon fade in the face of their own insolence. There is no place for pain.

But some live deeper, nestle between the bones. They put a black veil over Sam’s dreams, and leave dewdrops at the corners of his eyes. Those scars are the ones Dean hates the most. Invisible ones, that bloom in the dark corners of Sam’s soul and swallow his carefree smiles. When he reaches those chapters, Dean stops reading. He gives his trembling hands and trembling lips another mission. Erase the abuse. Clean the wounds. Kiss the sorrows away.

There is no cure, and each one of his kiss is merely a splint. The scars remain, but pain disappears. And this is all he can hope for.


	3. A crown of bones

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Week #3 Prompt: Boy King

He has murder on the tip of his tongue but only his kisses are deadly. Dean learned it. Each one has to be conquered. There are battles to fight on the front line in order to be rewarded with a small promise whispered against parted lips. These are the rules. You don’t give Sam love, you don’t kneel at his feet. You don’t pray for his forgiveness. He’s not a god. He doesn’t listen, doesn’t grant wishes. He takes.

When Dean’s mouth presses against Sam’s, when they live in the same breath for a few seconds of ephemeral agony, Sam is the one taking. His teeth close around Dean’s tongue, bite until Dean agrees to pay the price of his lust. Nothing is free in Hell, and certainly not the King’s love. It hurts, and there is always the possibility to bite harder. Sam can. Sam wants to. It’s a risk, a bet on the next minute and the rest of Dean’s life. He wouldn’t want it any other way. 

Dean is the only one who can claim to know the taste of his brother’s soul. And every kiss is paid for with a few erratic heartbeats. When his mouth finally feels like his again, and Sam allows him to get it back, Dean is left hungry for more. But Sam only brushes the pad of his thumb on Dean’s lips, and his finger comes away coated in red.

The taste of death is addictive and, eternity after eternity, Dean offers torn pieces of his life in exchange for a few seconds of paradise in the heart of hell. Kisses and blood share the same color. But the firsts you get, the second you give. And Sam smiles, golden boy, hungry teeth and dark soul. They all thought he dodged a bullet. They never saw him pull the trigger. He is a King among robbers, a collector of souls and wasted lives. He’s the boyking. You can’t kiss him without him kissing you back.


	4. Hands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Week #4 Prompt: All Hell Breaks Loose

There are hands holding him. Superhero hands, always bigger than Sam’s, no matter what. Hands that can pluck the stars from the sky and tie them together like a spring daisy chain. Hands that can chase after the sun. Hands that can love better than clever tongues and four letter words ever could. He doesn’t want to, but if has to fall, he’s glad those hands are the ones that will catch him. **  
**

So he lets go. He dies with hands holding his cheeks, palping his back. There’s mud, there’s blood, and it’s all mixing together like a last insult to his life, but he doesn’t care. Jake can lead all the demonic armies of the world, can kill until his eyes turn yellow, Sam doesn’t care. He just tries to keep his eyes open.

_Don’t stain those hands, they’re meant to hold precious things. They’re not supposed to touch death. Don’t let your last breath bruise those palms._

Fingers card through his hair and he’s home. He’s four he’s six he’s nine and twelve and sixteen and twenty two and the fingers are still there. He has hundreds of memories of just this, that feeling of nails scraping his scalp and his hair being pulled lightly. And now he’s too tired to protest, to pretend he doesn’t love this more than sunrises. This is all there is to life. All there _was_ , his stuttering heartbeat reminds him.

Oh, how easy it is to love when you’re about to die. He looks at the hands one last time, looks at Dean one last time, and remembers that delicate things are doomed to be lonely. He should apologize, maybe, because his skin is growing cold, he’s dirty, and he can’t breathe.

There are hands holding him. Big brother hands, always strong than Sam’s, no matter what. Hands that can bring warmth to his cheeks, that can cajole him back to life. Hands that can make him forget he’s ever been alive. He doesn’t want to, but if he has to die, he’s glad those hands are the ones that will mourn him.


	5. Nightcall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Week #5 Prompt: Stanford

Stanford is the first case Sam doesn’t want to solve. Whispers reach his ears when he’s alone in his small dorm room, deadly silent and accusing. There is no heartbeat answering his own, no light snoring to be heard, no tossing around. He’s in a single bed and misses cold feet slipping under his thighs. When morning comes, the mattress is heavy and stained with his loneliness. His sheets remember his dreams, he never does.

There’s a saying. When you’re in love you see the object of your affections everywhere. Sam sees Dean everywhere. But he’s not in love. He’s mourning. He’s grieving a brother whose heart he can’t reach with a look anymore. He misses the fingers that always knew how to touch him, the lips that left silky promises on the back of his knees, between his shoulderblades, in the hollow of his throat. He misses the warmth of being whole.

There’s a gaping hole inside his chest, thousands of paper cuts that make him bleed all over his ribcage. And yet he doesn’t want to leave. Never wants to leave this place, the lectures and the routine, people he can call friends and can commit to his memory. He has his own place, not home, never home, but a place he has the keys of. His entire life does not fit into a duffel bag anymore. He writes himself into existence again, and finally, finally, people know who Sam Winchester is.

The shivers run deep. Maybe he’s haunted. He doesn’t want to hunt the ghost that follows him around. He doesn’t want to solve this case, and make Stanford just another name on a map of first dawns. He looks at kids who wear band shirts, Zeppelin, Motörhead, Metallica, all not worn or soft enough to pass as true reliques. There is nothing in the lore about this. Quiet ghosts, peaceful monsters. The claws that dig into his stomach are tender, press insistently but they’re only trying to hurt him out of love. There is no spell to cure heartache. Silver and holy water are useless against loneliness.

There’s no space in his room but there’s plenty between his bones. Day after day, Sam dutifully fills his mind with stolen memories, jeans ripped at the knees, light freckles on plush lips, warm and innocent laughter. He’s not home, but he can’t go back. So he waits for home to come to him.


	6. War and Peace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Week #6 Prompt: Serial Killers

_Bullet wounds like poppies growing out of the skin. The patch of red spreads, the flowers bloom, and hope is lost. The words are crimson red. Us. Us. Us.  
I can only wish for our souls to be splattered like blood all over the walls, for our death wishes to unfurl like wings from our broken hearts. Make me sticky with lost promises, trail the knife down the slope of my spine. Remind me that if I am still alive, it is because others aren’t._

Life spills from murderers’ skins, and trembling hands try to hold on to what they shamelessly stole from innocent bodies. Are monsters still monsters when they beg? Last sighs come undone with a softness that holds an indecent truth: all evil was gentle, once. The pool of blood is no longer raw, it’s the falling veil of a tent full of birds.

The guilt comes out, sharp like a blade and it cuts deep. Agony is not supposed to taint delicacies. Yet it does, and beasts die with innocents’ blood on their claws, and innocent thoughts on their minds. Above the remains of those aborted lives, shameful heroes keep breathing. This is what death looks like: two boys with razor sharp smiles and busted knuckles. Their hearts match each other, windows of the same house where the walls are painted red and where thighs are meant to be spread open by hungry mouths.

The deepest bruises bloom on broken hearts, where the eyes can’t see and where it hurts so much more. But pain is an old friend, and in a world where tomorrow is a foolish bet on the next minute, it’s the only proof that you’re still alive. The bodies are still warm when the boys disappear below the horizon. There are no traces to be found, no clues to add to an empty file.

Two shadows with trigger fingers ride a car that goes too fast. They’re heartbeats thieves, murder chameleons, rushing through life the way their bullets rush through the skin. They swallow miles and leave fear in their wake, people covering their open mouth with trembling fingers because _this can’t be real, not in our town, not here, not us._

The truck is full of weapons, but death really lies in the boys’ assessing eyes, the twitch at the corners of their mouths, the spiderwebs growing between their intertwined fingers. It makes them murderers, serial killers of the open road, part-time heroes full time demons. Walkmans of human despair and this is who they are, who humanity owes its sanity and salvation to, monsters with delicate features, assassins with velvet smiles and angel hearts.

Heroes don’t always wear shining armors. Sometimes they leave trails of dead bodies in their wake, sometimes they have graveyards between their ribs, and baleful omens on their tongues. They don’t step out of the light, they crawl out of the darkness. They’re a deadly afterthought, that makes the wolves keep howling at night, and old forgotten gods fall to their knees. Prayers rise together toward the moon, ten thousands fearful pleas for help, because two boys who hunt legends just turned immortality into a myth.


	7. Unkissed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Week #7 Prompt: kiss me where no one has kissed me before

Sweet sixteen, and he’s in love for the first time. It feels like it’s always been that way. Plump lips find their way down narrow hips, narrow bones, narrow sighs. Sam has gangly limbs and porcelain skin, and he hates how clumsy his touches are. 

He’s afraid to touch, to desecrate with unknowing hands and the desire coursing through his veins the sacred idol he worships days and nights. The cotton sheets smell like his dreams, and he wants to blame it on his teenage boy’s body. But if he comes staring at Anna Nicole’s mole in the magazine he stole from Dean, it’s not her candy shaped face that sends him over the edge. It’s the sticky magazine’s pages, used by his brother countless times in a way Sam wishes he could be.

The growth spurt hits hard and fast, his limbs stretch like branches and his leaf-shaped fingertips tremble in the breeze. It only seems normal to fill all the empty space between his bones with Dean.

Dean, Dean with his carefree grins and confident stroll. Dean and his girly eyelashes, pouty mouth that he doesn’t even have the decency to turn vulgar on purpose, and the light stubble on his jaw. Dean, wonderboy who makes women smear their strawberry shine lipstick on their teeth and men adjust their jeans on wobbly bar stools.

And Sam, Sam doesn’t have the experience. Sam’s a babydoll with bubblegum pink sprayed all over his intentions. He’s discovering his own body at the same time he does Dean’s, tries to do his best but knows that this is all not-new to Dean. His brother let himself be touched by velvet hands and more clever tongues before. Sam is just a boy, baby scented kisses and petal soft fingers.

He hides behind his bangs and braces himself on his elbows, doesn’t know how hard he is going to fall, bites his own lips bloody instead of making Dean’s bleed. “Sammy”. Audio tuned to the word, it hurts like a diamond hard hit to the chest. There’s a hand tugging at his hair and and he goes up, finds himself face to face with a smile sweeter than ice cream cones, the whole universe spattered in sunlight touches on a straight nose and freshly picked apples cheeks.

“Sammy”  
Again, again too knowing and too raw. Sam opens his eyes.  
“No one ever kissed me there”, Dean whispers like someone might hear, like this is a secret Sam just forced out of him, his index going just under his jaw, where the skin is soft and hidden, virgin pale just like Sam’s entire body is. He won’t let Dean see him blush. He lowers his head and plants his lips on the skin, presses gently one time, one more, and one last, bites a little and soothes the hurt with his tongue. But not too much.

Dean sighs above him, whole body thrumming with want and Sam doesn’t need to look between his brother’s legs to know that he just beat every lace panties Dean ever pushed aside.  
“Where else?” he asks before he trails his lips to the shell of Dean’s ear, where he murmurs right against Dean’s skin. “Here?”

There’s a careful nod and Sam closes his eyes, kisses the unkissed, again. Maybe this is a lie, maybe it is the truth, but Sam keeps asking and keeps kissing Dean. On the inside of his wrist, pepsi cola sunday, on the back of his knees, eighties skin mags, on the sole of his feet, homemade mixtapes. He kisses religion into Dean’s bones, kisses him the way none of Dean’s midnight flings ever could. He kisses him California sunrises, kisses him fourth of July and prettiest boy in town. He kisses him like Dean’s never been kissed, anywhere, by anyone.


	8. Breathe in, breathe out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Week #8 Prompt: Shotgunning

It’s a game of push and pull, both of them testing boundaries that feel like silk ribbons ready to be untied with fingers full of grace and dark intentions. Sam is never cold under his brother’s gaze, but sick to the core. His heart crawls up his throat and his teeth settle in his ribcage. There’s love in his mouth and hunger in his chest, every piece of himself rearranging itself until his lanky boy’s body looks as distorted as Picasso’s young ladies of Avignon. **  
**

Sprawled on the motel bed with nonchalance and dirty clothes, Dean looks as inviting as warm naked skin. The little hole in the fabric of his once blue jeans, just above his left knee, is more indecent than any picture Sam could find in the magazines stacked on the shelves he’s finally tall enough to reach in gas stations. His brother is a dangerous flower, petals waiting to be plucked for the sake of a childish riddle, _he loves me, he loves me not_ , but he’s got thorns that can go through skin and bones. Sam knows he will say yes to whatever Dean asks, will snap his own neck with the force of his pitiful nodding. That’s what Dean does to him, what he is, ice cream sweetness sprinkled with gunpowder. And Sam will whisper “Thank you”, as he’s digging his own grave, Dean’s revolver eyes trained on him, a wink away from pulling the trigger. 

There’s a joint between his brother’s fingers, slowly burning while Dean pushes the smoke out of his mouth. _He loves me_. The hand rises again, brings the joint to plump lips that part just enough to let it fit there, soft pink pillow and Sam has never wanted to go to bed this badly. Dean inhales, his chest expanding and dark hooded eyes shifting until they meet Sam’s. _He loves me not_.  
“Want a hit?”  
Another silk ribbon to untie, because Sam doesn’t smoke, weed even less than cigarettes. Their fingers brush when the joint leaves Dean’s fingers to sit in Sam’s. He brings it to his own lips, chapped and dry with too much biting and never enough gentleness. This is the closest he’s ever been to kissing his brother. Pay per view has nothing on this.

The smoke twists and curls in his stomach and he’s an empty soda bottle dumped on the highway side, bought and used and forgotten. He doesn’t cough and it’s a small victory for the way Dean’s eyes narrow a little, for the spasm of muscle in his jaw, genuine doubt creeping into his features for a second because _what if Sam did this before, with somebody else?_

Maybe that uncertainty is what makes Dean pluck the joint from Sam’s fingers and wordlessly tug on Sam’s arm until he gets on the bed, domino boy ready to fall with just the right touch from his brother. He doesn’t think it’s because of his heart shaped lips and the slow steady stretch of his pupils. He might be wrong.  
“C’mere”  
It sounds deadly but Sam is seventeen, laying on a motel bed that’s heavy with memories bought by the hour, and in love the way only teenage boys are. It’s devastating and soft, just like Dean’s mouth. Dean leans on his elbows, joint still in hand and but Sam is the one burning away. Dean takes another drag, eyes slightly unfocused and Sam knows his brother is already high, has been for a while and maybe he wouldn’t do this if he wasn’t. It doesn’t make it any less real.

He holds the smoke in, lowers his head and his eyes shift until they zero in on Sam’s mouth. That gaze is a necklace around Sam’s neck, scalding hot emerald beads leaving goosebumps on his skin. He knows what is about to happen before Dean opens his mouth. But he’s not ready, can’t ever be. Their lips are almost touching, that _almost_ that feels better than wet mouths kissing frantically. The smoke that leaves Dean’s lips hits Sam’s. It curls on his tongue and doesn’t stop, drips like honey down his throat and fills his lungs. Sam doesn’t know if he’s delirious because of the weed or because of Dean. It doesn’t really matter, both are addictive and both make his cheeks burn.

He has to turn his head to let the smoke out, but if the smoke leaves his lungs, Dean doesn’t. They trade _almost_ kisses for a while, bodies pressing together and lines blurring. Everything is hidden by the smoke, thick enough that they will be able to pretend they don’t remember anything in the morning, but thin enough that they will both know it’s a smoke laced lie. 

By the time the joint finds the ashtray, the bed is full of silk ribbons, and Sam has a three words prayer on his tongue.  
 _He loves me._


	9. Echoes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Week #9 Prompt: Ghosts

The first one appears in the silent space between their lips. The gap is too big and too wide, a handful of seconds that feel like an eternity filled with regret and longing. The spirit grows out of thin air, invisible spiderweb of an almost memory. Just an afterthought and a ghost is born around lovesick mouths. An aborted kiss, boys love boys but lips don’t touch. That’s how it starts. **  
**

There is another one trapped in the glove box of the car. Holy mixtape Sam made for his brother one sticky sweet summer years ago. The ghost sleeps curled around Sam’s clumsy handwriting, around the ashamed betrayal of raw feelings that run way deeper than sixteen tracks and a particularly awesome B-side. That’s how it sounds.

Ghosts grow out of their skins with each touch, exist in their silences. They taste like lukewarm Budweiser, like Old Winnett Road, Montana, like 4.99$ snacks and keep the change thanks. They blossom like deadly flowers out of every missed opportunity, every liquor store fueled decision. Cherry pits headlocks, damp palms brushing soft hair, 3am soft whispers. There’s an army of forbidden fruits that run translucent fingers through their hair and hum _Riders of the storm_ in their ears.

That’s how it ends. With gasoline spit and salted smiling mouths. They dug up the graves decades ago but finally, finally hit the coffins with their shovel tongues. The ghosts dance around them, not so much vengeful as ready to find peace. The zippo comes to life, flickering flame pounding in the hidden space between their lungs, and it takes just a gasp to start the fire. Ghosts leave, love stays.


	10. Strawberry shine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Week #10 Prompt: Crossdressing!Sam

1999\. Worst year of their lives. Sam’s because Dean doesn’t look at him enough, Dean’s because everyone looks at Sam too much. Sam is the worst kind of trouble, because he’s worth it. Worth the life long sentence, worth painting an orange jumpsuit in red because “pedophile” is a word that will not get you any friend, even behind iron bars. And a fleeting touch on that porcelain skin is worth it. Angel face and demon heart, all of it sickly sweet. He’s not flavor of the week, loved for five days and forgotten just as fast. He’s a newly crowned prom queen crying under a lousy turning disco ball, little dots of lights illuminating mascara coated cheeks, tears trembling at the tip of long eyelashes, beauty at its finest. Life altering, earth shattering. **  
**

Truckers gaze at his long lanky limbs, pale skin and bubblegum pink fingernails. And Sam stares right back, turn their looks less heated and more cautious, because he might look like a babydoll, all soft curves and light peach eyeshadow, collector of heartbreaks and swallowed tongues, but there’s only one pair of hands he allows near his skin.  
Ugly mouths smile at him anyway because there are _what if_ s tangled in his hair that he brushes out with a flick of his delicate wrists. Sam smiles too, small and quick because he won’t ever be soft for those damp palms. He looks in his jacket’s inside pocket, finds there a perfect middle finger he raises in front of him, takes an invisible lid off of it and then smears a special ‘fuck you’ shade of lipstick with his finger on his mouth. It’s enough to have eyes narrowing at him, and to have Dean scowling. Oh, that lovesick scowl.

“Sam”, he warns. It’s a flammable word, a gasoline name for a boy who wears lace panties with forget-me-nots embroidered in the fabric. _As if_. 

Sam lets his hands fall back in his lap and smacks his lips together, blows a kiss to his brother or to the guy who’s looking at him, and waits to see who will catch it first. It’s usually Dean, face contorting like Sam just slapped him. That’s what his kisses feel like.   

1999\. Worst year of their lives. Sam’s because pop singers are all over the place, Dean’s because he has to listen to Sam sing along with every single one. Britney is lonely, waiting for a sign, and Sam knows the feeling, but when she says “ _Hit me baby one more time”_ , Sam mouths the end of the chorus with her, staring at his brother and cocking his head to the side, and he means something else entirely.  
The day will end like the one before, with Sam stepping out of stockings with a hole on his right thigh, one that would not be seen if Sam was wearing a skirt that wasn’t this short. But he shows it, the hole, his mile long legs, the velvet skirt, and he might use the money dad gave him for his school books on a pair of shoes. Knowledge is power, but so is a five inches heel.

1999\. Worst year of their lives, because nothing will ever be the same. Sam wears nothing but his cheap nail polish, and Dean loses a little more of himself, wants to give his brother a necklace of bruises that don’t betray pain and hurt but spell _mine mine mine_ in black and blue around Sam’s throat. And maybe Sam will allow it. Maybe.

In the meantime, Sam wears his brother’s love like his eyeshadow, powdered on his eyelids and smudged to make his eyes brighter than sunshine. He wears it on his lips, strawberry gloss he licks all day long and that leaves the faint taste of summer on his tongue. Sam doesn’t say the words, but instead puts on heart-shaped sunglasses while Dean is driving, lets his brother see the bra strap from where Dean’s shirt fell from Sam’s bony shoulder, and smiles at his brother from the passenger seat.


	11. Dark Paradise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Week #11 Prompt: Lana Del Rey

Their story is not a Lana del Rey song. It doesn’t shine under the pale moonlight, it doesn’t wear “blues jeans, white shirt”, it doesn’t look better behind heart-shaped sunglasses. The road stretches ahead and there are no birds, no summer breeze, no empty minds and carefree grins. Just two hands holding the steering wheel and a cardboard box of mixtapes stuffed under the passenger’s seat. They sleep in the car and wake up with the seat belts imprinted on their cheeks, and a crook in their necks. **  
**

Lana couldn’t sing about them. Their love is not proud and unapologetic. It’s delicate and pulsing like blood through their veins. There are no words for what they are to each other. Brother ceased to be enough the second Dean stepped in that over sanitized hospital room only to discover that the world had tilted from its axis, and that there were now two suns in the galaxy. “Brother”does not come even close.

There are no honey coated words for them. No soul-deep heartache. Broken hearts just bleed red. What it sounds like is anguished screams and the twig like snap of broken bones. Happiness is a reluctant grin Dean manages to get out of Sam. It’s good water pressure in the shower, it’s remains turning to ashes and people dying twice. Everything important always happens after midnight, and you never die because things are too beautiful. Melancholy tries to make itself a room between their most fragile ribs, but it can never stay for long, always pushed aside by a desire to survive that is more a curse than a blessing when you’re the last two heirs of a family of interrupted heartbeats.

Sam and Dean. Dean and Sam. Two names always. Two names only. It feels strange and overwhelming when they have someone else to look at, when they have to share each other’s existence with the rest of the world. They rise to an impossible freedom with determined violence and bruises under their tired eyes. It tastes like powdered eggs and lukewarm beer. It looks like never ending corn fields, and covers everything with a thin layer of dirt. There is no grace hiding in the eyes of waitresses who have never seen what the earth looks like past their stretch of highway. Their voices aren’t deep and velvet smooth, they’re scraped raw by smoke and sound older than the tongues they’re attached to.

Stories are just that. Stories, traded for a couple of shots of bad whisky, that nobody even thinks about putting on paper. They’re ghosts hunters and hunters’ ghosts, live in the air that travels from mouth to ear, exist in ephemeral seconds only. There is no beauty to sing about. There never was.


	12. Stay beautiful

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Week #12 Prompt: Major character death

"Stay beautiful”  
That is what Sam said, one eternal summer ago. When he was still a black butterfly of a boy, open heart and open thighs. Too serious for a fifteen year old who never eats the brown M&M’s and still asks for strawberry milkshakes in diners. Too tender to do anything but completely unravel Dean, break him in a million heart shaped pieces that only Sam would be able to put back together, slowly, one touch at a time.

“Stay beautiful”  
It was brutally soft, and Dean’s throat had tightened. He had asked as an afterthought, because it wasn’t a question. _What would I do without you_. Muffled against sweat slick skin and so loud. Too loud, too much, like it always was between them. But Sam had had an answer, of course he had. Sam had answers for everything: his disposable teachers’ questions, Dean’s frowns, Dad’s scowls. Sweet smiles, a brush of his thumb, a scowl of his own. Sam knew.

And Sam had answered that ghost of a question. Two words, dove wings brushing Dean’s cheeks as Sam’s sticky fingers did the same. Teenage boy lips pressing against his ear, as if kissing the words into Dean’s skin would fill with concrete each of Dean’s hollows. It didn’t.

~

Dean remembers. The moment is trapped in a snow Globe he built in his memory, fragile but untouchable. He sees the grass, dry and dead while he and Sam were so alive. The clear blue sky and the unforgiving sun. The ladybug that slowly crawled up Sam’s leg. Sam’s lips stretched into a smile that only existed in their intimacy. It’s enough to give some pastel colors back to Dean’s melancholy. _Stay beautiful._

Sam dies on another summer day, too beautiful to be anything but insulting. Everything is quiet and soft, like Death should never be for people like Sam. Dean is bound to increase the age difference between them with each passing day, each dawn carved into Dean’s ribs. Sam dies and the words don’t mean anything. His last painful breaths bloom like violent flowers in the middle of Dean’s chest, and when Sam’s heart stops beating, Dean becomes a ghost. Unfinished business trembling at the tip of his eyelashes, useless anger pulsing in his chest. He’s empty. And Sam, flushed cheeks and brown bangs falling on his sweaty forehead, fingernails bitten bloody, Sam had said “Stay beautiful”.

Dean stares at the pyre, looks as Sam becomes one with the wind. He wonders what he could do to make Sam his for just a bit longer, one more blink of hazel eyes, one more lick of his clever tongue. The grass is poking Dean’s ankle and he doesn’t feel it, has stopped feeling his skin hours or centuries ago, he’s not sure. He doesn’t recognize himself, and if Sam was there Dean could tell him to knock it off and give back the pieces of Dean he stole. But instead Dean is alone, until a black butterfly twirls around the few poppies growing in the grass.

“Stay beautiful”.  
Dean can’t, because the only beauty he could ever claim as his own is burning away on the pyre.


	13. Saints and Sinners

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Week #13 Prompt: First time

First love, when the leaves are turning brown and falling to the ground. It’s autumn, everything is cold, it rains more than it should, and he’s having sex for the first time. He’s having sex with his brother. Their first time together, after their first kiss, after the first brush of a thumb on a warm cheek. That’s a lot of firsts into one. He’s bent in two, paper limbs folded by Dean’s origami kisses. It’s been a long time coming, this, them. Sam tries to breathe but air is just opium stuck in his crushed lungs, thick and intoxicating. It’s alright, he’s alright. **  
**

He wants to feel it for centuries, wants to limp to school and lie about his shaky legs. He wants  to be a broken toy, wants his cheeks to burn bright red when people call him names behind his bony back. If only they knew. Sam could laugh if he wasn’t ready to fall apart, legs hooked on Dean’s shoulders and he’s so tight, too tight around his brother. It’s a violent burn that’s anything but sweet and Sam knows this is just the beginning. There’s a lifetime of pain ahead of you, _boy_.

Knees buckle under the weight of too much love, too many hands touching his skin, and Sam knows right that instant that he and Dean are forever, will make centenary oak trees fall to their knees and flowers bloom between their clasped hands. He knows, because Dean is shaking above him, no better than those countless autumn leaves. It’s want, gut wrenching fear, adoration, all mixed into one fragile heart, that Sam could swear just moved to the palm of his hand. He should open his eyes to see if there’s a gaping hole in the middle of Dean’s chest. He should.

His hips rise to meet Dean’s thrusts, gasps every time Dean’s cock brushes that oh so wonderful bundle of nerves. There is no pain anymore, but no softness either. Softness belongs to the world that existed outside the bedroom twenty minutes ago. Softness is how his hand fits perfectly on Dean’s chest when they’re falling asleep. Softness is the ghost of Dad’s crows feet. Dean grunts above him and Sam bites his tongue. Thinking of dad now, when his cock is leaking on his belly, is properly scandalous.

Dean’s eyes burn on the side of his neck, Sam’s head thrown to the side because he can’t handle anything now, can’t give Dean more than this, an awkward teenager’s body and a soul still covered with morning dew. And yet Dean wants more, of course he does. Burning fingers touch his skin and bring his head back, before lips press softly on Sam’s cheek. “Look at me Sam”

Sam wants to get drunk on that sound, to bury it in the darkest part of his chest where an ugly monster hides and digs his claws into Sam’s ribs whenever Dean so much as looks at him. His name tumbles from Dean’s lips with such reverence, a twisted faith that Sam could drown into because Dean Winchester does not believe in God but he believes in his dorky little brother.

He bites his own lips, keeps his eyes closed and tries to lose himself again in the feeling of Dean’s steady thrusts, in the hot flares of pleasure that roll down his spine.There’s an almost inaudible “please” that slips past teeth biting gently Sam’s earlobe. It’s even worse than the sound of his name, because big brothers don’t say please. They don’t ask, they don’t need to. Sam opens his eyes.

His thin lanky legs are still on Dean’s shoulders, his cock is still painfully hard against his belly, still brushes against Dean’s stomach with every move. But now that he catches his brother’s gaze, he is finally, finally naked.

Autumn. The world becomes cold and lifeless, but inside a crappy motel room somewhere in Idaho, an unutterable summer breaks through the rain.


	14. A thing to call my own

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt #14: Purple dog shirt

He finds it in a thrift store, has only three crumpled dollar bills in his pocket but he still get some change back for it. It’s three sizes too big when he puts it on the first time. His small frame is completely engulfed by the shirt, bottom pulling around his ankles like a summer dress. The shirt is navy blue, and there’s a greyhound on it, big tall weird ass dog printed on the front and Sam doesn’t really know why but he likes it. Really,  _ really,  _ likes it. Dean gives him hell for it. 

He’s five and the shirt is too big. He’s ten and it’s still too big, even if it only reaches above his bony knees now. He’s fifteen and he starts to fill it properly, the cotton stretched thin and soft, small little holes appearing at the seams. He’s sixteen when the shirt is finally his size and by then, it’s a questionable shade of purple. Sam still loves it. Dean still pretends he’s painfully going blind whenever Sam puts it on. 

He wears it when he’s seventeen and dad drives them from one side of the country to the other, likes that it got washed too many times and is so soft it’s perfect for long hours stuck in a car that feels like home but stinks the way it has to when you trap three grown men in it for ten hours, and has leather seats that do nothing to keep Sam from sweating bullets whenever there’s a little bit of sun outside. 

He wears it when he’s nineteen and he’s the only one who doesn’t go ‘home’ on the weekend, all his friends leaving the dorms that smell like dirty socks and where no one wishes to study a second more than they have to. He lays on his mattress in the shirt and closes his eyes, imagines that the small breeze that slips past the open window comes from the other side of the country, and that with it comes the echo of a voice that sighs “oh god not that piece of crap again”

He stops wearing it when he’s twenty two. The greyhound is mostly invisible by the time Sam takes the shirt off for the last time. It’s been a long time coming but it feels like saying goodbye to an old friend. Dean watches as his brother folds the shirt carefully and lovingly, small and private smile tugging at his lips, and leaves it on the bed as he steps out of the motel room. Dean says “About time” when he finds Sam outside and Sam punches his shoulder. 

He’s twenty five when he finds the it at the bottom of Dean’s duffel bag.   
He’s out of shirts and they need to find a laundromat soon, but they just finished a case and the only thing Sam wants is a beer, a pizza and a movie with lots of explosions on the small motel room tv. He’s digging in Dean’s bag while his brother is taking a shower, and doesn’t realize what he’s holding until he unfolds it. There’s a lump in his throat but he will never admit it. When Dean comes out of the bathroom, he finds Sam sprawled on his bed wearing the shirt like he hasn’t trashed it three years ago.   
Dean is silent for all of two seconds before he sighs dramatically. “Seriously?”  
It sounds a lot like relief. 

  
  
  



	15. Of monsters and delicacies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Week #15 Prompt: Daddy's little monster shirt

Soft skin wild heart oh he’s so sweet. Sweat soaked bony boy, who wears a shirt that rides _high high high_ above his stomach. “Daddy’s little monster”, it says, black lettering printed on white cotton and a red stripe across the chest. Dean forgot where Sam got it, probably stole it from the hidden part of a girl’s closet, or used the five fingers discount - for a reason Dean wishes he didn’t understand - last time they went shopping for clothes. _Clothes_ , he thinks with a bitter laugh. That shirt doesn’t qualify. **  
**

Sam’s is sprawled on their bed, _their, mine mine mine_ , shirt falling from one shoulder, the skin revealed a feast for Dean’s starved gaze. There’s a mole at the base of Sam’s neck, and the ghost of Dean’s lips in purple just above. He’s wearing the shirt and old faded black briefs that ride low, _too low, not low enough_ , on his hips. His tongue plays with the straw poking from a raspberry slurpee that’s turquoise for some reason. Sam hollows his cheeks and swallows, and when he sees Dean watching, sticks a blue tongue out. Dean could never win that battle.

“Quit it”, Dean rasps and it sounds so weak in everyone’s ears. He doesn’t have to explain what he’s talking about and it’s a pornographic confession in the suffocating motel room, words that shouldn’t mean anything turned raw and obscene when Sam’s teeth bite his own lips. Dean wants to sound irritated but his words come across as a pitiful plea and he is so so screwed. Sam’s eyes are a maze with no emergency exit and no secret path to get out of. It’s been seventeen years and Dean is still lost in there. _Trapped_ , his mind corrects. Locks of brown hair sharp as knives, blinding grins where teeth look like fangs ready to rob Dean of everything he could ever call his own, even his own name. It only sounds right on Sam’s forked tongue.

“Yes dad”, Sam mock salutes, grins less playful and more dangerous. He’s seventeen and being the little brother is not a weakness anymore, it’s a threat and a weapon wrapped into one with a silk bow.  
“Don’t call me that”, Dean snaps, because he can’t, won’t, think about this.  
“What? Dad?” There’s a twinkle in Sam’s slanted eyes that means trouble. Dean narrows his eyes but there’s a two dollars flush on his cheeks, cheap and easy and Sam knows it.  
”Daddy”, Sam slurs, making it sound like there are way more letters in the word, blue tongue licking his bottom lip and lashes lowering on a piercing gaze. He sets the slurpee precariously on the bed and crawls toward Dean, shirt collar too loose around his neck and Dean sees it all, Sam’s collarbones, his chest, the pale skin, and the traces his own teeth left down Sam’s sides just the night before.

He sees it all and trapped in his own jeans, undershirt and flannel shirt buttoned almost to the top, Dean is completely naked in front of his brother. Ready to drop to his knees and push the shirt even higher above Sam’s flat stomach, to roll it until it’s bunched under Sam’s armpits. The slurpee falls to the side and what was left in it flows in sluggish blue drops on the bed sheets. Sam glances backward and when his eyes come back on Dean’s, they’re daring. “Oops”. It sounds like victory.

“Aren’t you mad at me, daddy?”  
Dean is frozen to the spot, and Sam sees right through him, smirk pulling one corner of his mouth upward and Dean glances at the shirt again. _Daddy’s little monster_. Sam’s a monster alright. One with smooth skin, big frightened doe eyes that are nothing but a deadly trap. He’s silk words woven into a deadly spiderweb where Dean’s been trapped for years already. His lips are the marble of Dean’s very own grave, and each kiss a nail sealing his coffin shut.

“Stop it Sam”. Oh but his words are shaky, and Dean knows that if he was a butterfly, Sam would have plucked his wings a long time ago. Sam reaches the bottom of the bed, kneels there and his lanky arms reach for Dean’s belt and undo it with deft fingers.  
“But I’ve been a bad boy”, Sam whines, _whines_ , his face in front of Dean’s crotch, cheeks rubbing against the rough denim of Dean’s jeans.They haven’t been doing this for long. This, whatever it is. But Sam never seems to have enough. _More more more_ , but Dean can’t tell if he’s hearing Sam’s voice or his own. His fingers twitch against his thigh, want to reach out and pull until Sam is flushed against his skin, only that damn shirt between them. Instead he carefully threads his fingers through Sam’s hair, and he can almost hear Sam purr. He doesn’t realize Sam’s been pushing his pants and underwear down until cold air hits his cock, just before it’s engulfed in warm and damp heat. The fingers in Sam’s hair become claws, hold Sam’s head and Dean’s hips snaps before he can stop them, Sam coughing around him. His cock hits the back of Sam’s throat, and Dean groans, low and gone for his little brother.

“Daddy’s little monster”, the shirt says. Sam hums around Dean, one hand reaching for his own briefs and slipping past the waistband, disappearing to the wrist under the fabric. Monster. It doesn’t say that when you fall in love with a monster, you end up becoming one yourself.


	16. Growling hands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Week #16 Prompt: Fist fights

The first time it happens Sam is fifteen and Dean nineteen. There are cobwebs between their hearts, and a storm rolling down Sam’s spine that nothing can calm down anymore. Not the PB&J sandwiches, not early morning runs when the world is still asleep, not Indiana Jones marathons. The words coming out of his mouth are no longer coated with blind faith, soft and innocent the way only children’s words can be. Instead they’re sharp and when he spits them to his brother’s face, Dean feels like he’s been hit by lightning, while thunder makes Sam’s curl his hands by his side.  

It starts as a rough push against Dean’s shoulder. It becomes cutting insults and slanted eyes. It ends with Sam’s fist against Dean’s cheekbone, and the imprint of Dean’s knuckles on Sam’s bleeding eyebrow. It’s the first time it happens. It’s far from being the last. 

It is nothing like wrestling for fun, making a game out of the growing strength in their limbs. There is no holding back, no bark of laughter between two grunts of pain. They aim to hurt and sometimes it’s with words and sometimes it’s with fists. They string the beads on a necklace of bruises, clenched fists the artists of a controlled violence that takes the body as a blank canvas. Their fights always end in stubborn silence. That’s how they choose to live, and it’s not surprising, when you lead the kind of life where blood is the only proof that you’re still alive. So they fight. 

And that’s how it works. Because it’s more difficult to let yourself be vulnerable, and because truth made its nest at the core of their anger. Each fight is a new intimacy, a new way to destroy a body they’d die to protect without a second thought. And when it hurts, when it really hurts, that’s when the fight leaves them, breathless and for half a second considering murder.  _ I would kill for you. I could kill you. I sometimes want to.  _

Fists uncurl and blood dries on busted knuckles. The blows are just memories and the bodies are adorned with blooming flowers, sad petals turning blue, purple and black, that will die a week later in complete silence, and never smell like anything but regret. There is no right and wrong, but sometimes it’s easier to say _ I love you _ when you can lick your own blood from your lips afterwards. 


	17. Until you breathe again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Week #17 Prompt: Dimples

There is tenderness tangled with their limbs between the cotton sheets. Dean watches Sam sleep, an epiphany nestled at his fingertips while he traces the lines of his brother’s face. It’s late, or early, a moment that does not really exist in time and will only be a permanent feature in their memories. Dean touches Sam’s forehead, pushes the vagabond strands back and bends down to put his lips on the warm skin. He leaves a small kiss there, hoping it will sink beneath the skin and the bone and will reach Sam in his dreams. His lips stray down Sam’s temple,  _ kiss _ , brush above Sam’s butterfly wings eyelashes,  _ kiss _ , and follow the curve of his nose,  _ kiss _ . Dean’s eyes are closed but when he brings his hand on Sam’s cheek, he feels under his thumb that beauty mark he wishes he knew less. It’s a barely there bump under his finger, but Dean would gladly die for it. His mouth recognizes it too, when he presses it there.  _ Kiss _ . 

Hazel eyes blink open, slightly unfocused as they come back to this, the here and ephemeral now, while the world ceases to exist around them. A thumb brushes the corner of Sam’s mouth and it’s a dandelion wish of a touch, but enough to have Sam smile softly. It’s a private smile, the ghost of the blinding grins Dean used to get when they were both too young to know the cost of careless freedom.   
And here they are, barely visible around Sam’s mouth, those two parenthesis, the delicate frame of the most precious artwork Dean’s ever seen. He lets his finger trace their contours, afraid to smooth them out if he presses too much. There are bruises hiding under the pads on Dean’s fingers, ready to spring and stain everything he could ever call soft. But not this, not Sam’s dimples. 

Sam blinks sleepily, raising his chin a little to give Dean more access. He doesn’t make Dean ask, reads on his brother’s face a confession that will never see the color of morning kisses.  _ I know what you’re doing Dean. _

He doesn’t own much, just a beautiful gun shaped for his grip and bullet words resting on his tongue. But this, this is his too, for a couple of seconds. Sam’s trust, Sam’s love, Sam’s ghost of a smile, Sam’s dimples. The mole next to his nose, the pink of his lips, the long eyelashes lighter at the tip, the strand of hair that fell on his forehead. Dean can’t keep any of it in his empty pockets, and his greedy heart protests but he knows he’s lucky. Because Sam lets him have it all, and he could take it all back with a blink. Seeing those dimples is a privilege, and Dean knows it. 

There is no beauty in forever, no hearts carved in stone that can outlive time and inevitability. It’s beautiful because it doesn’t last, and Sam is no exception. They’re not always there, the parenthesis around that smile. If Dean believed in God, he would call them miracle. As it is, he just shifts his head a little, and wonders if his kisses taste like pagans’ prayers on Sam’s lips. He buries his face in Sam’s neck, and feels Sam’s face shifting where it’s pressed against his temple. Maybe, if he’s lucky enough, Sam will still be smiling when Dean looks up. Maybe. 


	18. Empty hearts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Week #18 Prompt: Unrequited

1983  
Sam is a small bundle in his trembling arms, big eyes staring at him in awe, wide toothless grin, and Dean can’t do anything but stare right back. Life has never meant so much than right this second. This is the moment he will use to shape the rest of his life, the one mold he’ll try to fit in until his knees are too old to hold him up anymore. He can feel it already, baby soft cement filling all his hollows, warm like sunshine and sweet like sugar. Sammy. Dean is in love before he even knows what it means.

1993  
Sam keeps saying it. When Dean gives him the last of the lucky charms, when he helps him with his homework, when he plays hide and seek with him. _I love you, I love you, I love you_. It happens so often, tumbles so easily from Sam’s little boy lips that it would be meaningless if it weren’t for the complete adoration on Sam’s face whenever he utters those three words. Each time, he means it will all his heart, and each time, Dean wonders if being a big brother will ever be enough. I love you. “ _Me too_ ”, Dean thinks, but he never says it back, too afraid he’ll meant it. 

1997  
Sam says it one more time but it sounds different. The words are a kiss on Dean’s cheeks, and they leave him blushing and breathless. He wonders if things would have been different if Sam had had a real childhood, with friends he’d had known for more than two weeks, and people he could have tried to love as much as he loves Dean. He tries to swallow back his own weakness, tames the wild beast in his stomach that has been waiting for this moment for what seems like forever. He doesn’t listen to his own pounding heart, he just ruffles Sam’s hair and tells him he’ll grow out of it, that it’s normal at his age, that he’s just a bit confused. He looks down at the grubby floor to avoid Sam’s hurt gaze and heads out. He tries to quench his thirst between two open thighs that night, and can’t help but think that a couple of Sam’s tears on his tongue would be enough to drown him.

2001  
Sam is leaving for Stanford and violently slams his mouth against Dean’s. It’s more painful than anything Dean’s ever felt, especially since he wants nothing more than to kiss Sam until the world ends. Sam’s tongue licks his lips, begs Dean to open his mouth, to just let Sam in. But that’s not what Dean does, and he doesn’t know if it’s his or Sam’s heart that breaks when he pushes his brother back and yells “What the fuck is wrong with you?!”  
An hour later Sam is gone, and Dean knows he did the right thing. It doesn’t stop him from punching the mirror in the motel’s bathroom he’s staying in until it breaks in a thousand little pieces.

2003  
Sam is twenty and he’s in love with a girl. Dean watches them as they’re walking across the campus. He slides down the seat of the car he stole, _borrowed_ , two states over and tries not to look like a creep as he spies on his brother. Sam and the girl are holding hands, and Dean is close enough that he can recognize the look on Sam’s face. Sam is looking at her the way he used to look at Dean. Sam stopped being in love with him two years ago, after a lifetime of thinking Dean wasn’t in love with him, when Dean could never love anyone else. Life has a twisted sense of humor. Dean knows it’s for the best, but it hurts more than anything. When he goes to sleep that night, he’s still in love with his brother. It could never really be any other way.


	19. Faded memories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt #19: "I'm proud of us"

It’s not about the monsters, what we did and what we achieved. Maybe I should, but I don’t care. Fuck, Sammy, I really don’t care. It’s not that.

When you were so little and stood on your feet for the first time, and you wobbled towards me with that big wide grin on your face. You were so tiny, a fat little baby so happy about everything when there was so little in this world worth smiling for. I couldn’t help but laugh. When I fell off my bike and you cleaned my scraped knee, with way too much gauze and more tears in your eyes than in mine. There was blood stuck under your fingernails, and you kept apologizing, I still don’t know what for. When I mowed lawns for a week and we went to the movies every night for two weeks. You made us watch the Lion king six times.

When you got your first part in the school play. You were a talking tree, and you asked me if I could read your “tree sadness” in how you moved your leaves. I couldn’t read jackshit Sam. When we broke in that closed gas station just to steal M&M’s because there was a Star Wars marathon on the motel TV and we didn’t have any snacks. Our tongues were blue and our stomachs hurt so bad when the bags were empty. When I turned nineteen and you brought me back some weed so we could get high. Still don’t know where you scored that. When we signed up for that baseball tournament and we kicked everyone’s ass. When I bet you twenty bucks I could use Marilyn Manson for a fake ID, name, picture and everything, and not get called out on it. You still owe me that twenty.

When we got trashed in that bar and you told that bald bulky dude that he looked like Santa. He didn’t even have a beard. When we got thrown out of that same bar, and we were so drunk it took us twenty minutes to reach the motel that was just across the street. You had a tiny pink paper umbrella in your hair that you stole from someone’s cocktail. It’s still in the glove box by the way, I don’t know if you know that. It’s important that you know. When we went to see Metallica. That concert Sammy, just, do you remember how awesome it was?

When you stuffed that abandoned puppy in your duffel bag and thought I wouldn’t hear it yipping in the backseat. When we hid all of Bobby’s caps and he threatened us with his rifle. I’m still not sure he wouldn’t have pulled the trigger. When dad took us hunting, for real, and you were crying so hard because you didn’t want to hurt the rabbits. When you called me to tell me you had aced your finals, and met a girl. When I drove to see you the next day, and it had been two years since we’d seen each other and you still fit just right against my chest.

When we lit those fireworks on the 4th of July. When you tried to make me chicken soup when I got sick and it tasted like ashes but I drank it anyway. When you emptied the shaving cream in my shoes after I put toothpaste in your conditioner. When you hid chestnut burrs in my socks and pretended it was a squirrel.

And yes, perhaps, when we saved the world.  
It’s for all of that.

“I’m proud of us”


	20. Thread and needle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt #20: Patching each other up

_Stop the blood_. These are the words running around in empty circles in Sam’s head. _Stop the blood, stop the blood_. They’re mocking him, crooked letters hissing like snakes and making him swallow bile. _Stop the blood_. That’s how things must happen, how they get back into place. Sam can’t live upside down and the deep gash on Dean’s stomach is his newfound gravity, the deadly sun around which Sam is currently rewriting his entire existence. But there’s just too much red, it’s soaking Dean’s shirt and the soft skin Sam usually likes to bruise with his lips. _Stop the blood_. There’s not enough color left on Dean’s face, light pink leaving his cheeks, and the green of his eyes glazing over. **  
**

It already happened countless times, and it will happen again. It’s just bad luck, a way to remind them that they’re not invincible, that they can defy Death all they want but they’re still nothing but a fragile puzzle of thin skin and glass bones. It’s a warning, painted in red all over Dean’s stomach. _You can kill demons, angels, behead vampires and torch ghosts, but don’t ever forget that you’re only human. Ephemeral. Breakable._

Dean grinds his teeth and Sam cleans the wound as best as he can, hopes that if neither of them mention it, the trembling in his fingers won’t stay in their memories. Dean presses his torn shirt against the wound while Sam fetches the thread and a needle. It only feels slightly ironical to think that his brother’s life sometimes hangs by just a thread. The movements are quick and efficient, he’s learned how to stitch a wound closed when he was twelve, and though there is something fundamentally wrong with that, at that precise second he’s grateful for the knowledge. Dean hisses and bites his lips but doesn’t say a thing. Sam feels his brother’s eyes on him, but can’t focus on anything right now. _Stop the blood_.

He doesn’t realize he’s done before Dean’s hands are carefully prying his from the death grip Sam has on Dean’s jeans. He’s staring at the neat row of stitches, too much always too much, but Dean’s not bleeding anymore. He did it.

“Sam, hey, Sammy”

He hears his name, blinks once, twice, can’t remember when he ended up sitting on the bed. There’s an annoying sound filling his ears, preventing him from focusing on what Dean is saying to him. One moment passes, one second or one century he couldn’t tell but Dean is back, wet cloth in hand and he gently rubs it on each of Sam’s fingers. The blood stains the white cloth, and the noise is still there, filling Sam’s head and he wants to ask Dean what the fuck it is but he can’t get his mouth to cooperate. It takes a while but eventually Sam’s hands are mostly clean, and Dean kneels before Sam, green eyes searching Sam’s face, looking for something Sam isn’t sure he can give his brother.

“You alright Sammy?”

Pale skin and little dots of brown, honey freckles and eyelashes lighter at the tip. Poetry hidden at the corners of Dean’s eyes, laugh lines carefully smoothed out. Plush lips, the color of freshly picked apples. Concern, a little fear, quiet pain. Sam blinks and looks at his brother, the noise dying down until he can hear his own thoughts again. His throat hurts and there’s wetness on his cheeks. Nothing makes sense. Dean shouldn’t ask this, he’s the one that got hurt. Sam is fine. Always is. Can’t afford not to be.

“I’m alright”, Dean whispers like he can read what’s going through Sam’s mind, fingers pushing Sam’s hair back on his forehead. “See?”, and he shows Sam the gauze on his stomach, clean, white, not a hint of blood on it. “I’m all good”. Sam didn’t put that gauze on, doesn’t remember seeing Dean doing it. The noise is back but this time Sam recognizes it as a whimper, coming out of his own mouth.

“You worry too much”, Dean smiles sadly, guiltily and of fucking course Dean would blame himself for what Sam recognizes now as his own little mental breakdown. He lets himself be stripped and put to bed, feels like a clumsy baby who doesn’t understand yet what his limbs are for. Dean keeps talking through it all, to Sam or to himself, it doesn’t really matter. The sound of that voice is enough to bring Sam back, to center him back on earth, to let him breathe again. Adrenaline leaves him in a rush, and he’s suddenly exhausted, is already half asleep by the time Dean gets behind him in the bed; one leg slipping between his, an arm curling around Sam’s waist and pulling him closer.

Scars blossom, come and go like the sunburns of deadly summer days. They’re memories, rushing beneath the skin. Sam traces the ones he can see on Dean’s skin, and knows that there are just as many scars on his own heart, left by fear and blind panic. But so long as they can patch each other up, body and soul, they’ll be fine. He falls asleep with his brother’s lips on his temple, and a careful hope in his heart.


	21. For just another day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt #21: July 4th

Here’s to them.  
To the epiphanies they will write across the sky. Someday they won’t think of the night as a quiet time. When the wind will pick up, it won’t tickle their skins and leave kisses tangled in their hair anymore.

The future’s not as bright as dawn, and one of them knows it already. _It won’t take long until you catch up, little brother_. But each day where Sam goes to bed without fear making ribbons out of his guts, is a small victory. And there might be many wars to come, but this is the most important one. The battle to keep innocence alive for one more day.

So here’s to them.  
The grass is wet and soaks their shoes. The night is cold and it’s raining. Tomorrow might be a funeral, but tonight they’re still young, and free. Let the fireworks lit up the sky.

“Thank you Dean”. This is what he says, dimples carved deep into his cheeks. Dean shivers and allows himself to blame it on the rain. One day soon they’ll stop talking as much. One day soon _he_ ’ll trade blind faith for skepticism. But tonight while the small drizzle seeps beneath their clothes, they’re still just brothers, happy to be together and to share something that no one else is privy to.

It starts with an old zippo, and ends with explosions across the night sky. Fireworks go off one after the other, illuminating the sky with blue, red, green… They rewrite the stars, rearrange them into new constellations that twirl like Saturn’s rings around their fingers. Dean knows he’ll get hell for this, but Sam’s blinding grin makes it worth it. There’s still faith tonight, in him, in them, in the world.

The fireworks die down, and Sam is hugging him hard enough that Dean hopes he’ll get bruises. It might be the last time, afterall. Sam digs his fingers in Dean’s back, clings like they’ll be thrown apart the second the darkness engulfs them again. There are things Dean wishes he could say, things that can tumble easily from Sam’s lips but always get stuck in Dean’s throat. He doesn’t know how to speak in a language that doesn’t leave him vulnerable, breakable under a leather jacket too big for him. So instead he buries his head in Sam’s hair, relishes the feeling of being the taller one for just one more day, and puts his arms around Sam. Maybe if he holds him long enough, Sam will hear his thoughts.

Happy fourth. That’s what people say.  
It’s just one day, a couple of hours and colors stolen from a life that’s turning darker with each sunsets, but as Dean presses an invisible kiss to Sam’s skull, he has to think it himself. For Sam, for him, for both of them.  
 _Happy fourth_.


	22. I call your name

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt #22 : Kill or be killed

He’s fourteen, still a boy’s face and boy’s heart, the first time he kills something that he thinks of as someone. His dad lives in a world that’s the same exact color of the newspapers articles he reads day after day. There’s no “maybe”, no “but”, it’s just monsters, a big nameless entity that must be stopped. **  
**

Sam glances at the head that was hissing at him only seconds ago as it rolls on the dusty floor and he wants to ask dad where the red that’s coating his hands belongs in his monochromatic life.

“It was _it_ or you, Sam.”

That’s what dad says before he leaves the nest. Dean is right next to Sam, his own face just as red as Sam’s hands.

“This was someone”, Sam mumbles.

Dean doesn’t offer Sam any comfort, has stopped trying a couple of months ago, and Sam hates him as much as he hates himself. Dean’s hands are always tentative now when they brush Sam’s hair or settle on his shoulders. Sam hates it, hates the gentleness, hates that Dean is so unsure of _them_ now. He hates Dean.

“Names belong to where that thing came from, Sam. They don’t belong to what it was now, or to where it was going.”

“Fuck you”, Sam spits, eyes blazing because this is so Dean, trying to keep their fucked up version of a family together, trying to appease everyone because he can’t stand it when Sam and dad fight. He’s in for a treat, Sam thinks. That night he spends an hour locked in the bathroom, ignores the pounding fists on the door and the yells urging him to get out already. He stays in the shower until the water’s cold but when he steps out he can still see the blood on his hands. Can’t ever unsee it.

~ ° ~ 

He’s twenty four when, he gets killed. Rusty knife plunging deep in his skin, reaching his spine and cutting his life strings neatly. How ironic it is to think that he’s spent his whole life looking forward, staring at the future, _his_ future, with a careful hope in his heart, only to be stabbed in the back.

He doesn’t know how many monsters he’s killed, can’t remember how or when. He remembers that vampire forever ago, still sees blood stuck under his fingernails. It doesn’t help to think that maybe he’s been one of them all along. Demon blood for a boy who’s never really been one in the end. So Sam falls to his knees, feels the mud dampening his pants, and tries to focus on it.

It’s been a decade, with highs and lows, but Dean is still there. Except he’s too late this time, twenty four years too late Sam could say. But he can’t speak, can only focus on that mud. It’s probably for the best. He would like to ask if his name belongs to the past too, if he lost any right to be called anything the day those drops of blood fell in his mouth when he was still a little baby in a crib.

It pains Sam to admit it, but dad was right all along. In this world, you kill or you get yourself killed. Sam didn’t understand that until now. It’s not about things being black or white. It’s all about red. And it makes an awful lot of sense now, just as he starts to lose consciousness. Dean’s hands are no longer tentative, they’re gripping him hard enough to leave bruises. Sam feels at home, finally. And when Dean yells “Sam”, whimpers “Sammy”, over and over again, Sam wishes he could smile. Because he’s dying, but he’s still someone. That’s all he could really ask for.


	23. static

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Week #23 prompt: the voicemail

_Listen to me, you bloodsucking freak. Dad always said I'd either have to save you or kill you. Well, I'm giving you fair warning. I'm done trying to save you. You're a monster, Sam -- a vampire. You're not you anymore. And there's no going back._

Each word rings like a gunshot in his ear. It’s a foreign language that tumbles free from a forked tongue Sam knows better than anyone else’s in this world. This is Dean and Sam could always understand him, no matter what. Through earth-shattering anger and bone-cutting grief, they could always talk, a language where words did not matter as much as lips did. Curled into a sneer, bitten red and bloody, curved into a soft smile.

He can’t listen to it again, has to leave a sliver of uncertainty hanging in the air. Maybe he misunderstood a word, maybe his mind’s playing tricks on him. He’s seen more fake things in the last twenty fours hours than he has in his entire life. This could be fake too. And if he doesn’t listen to the voicemail again, he can almost convince himself of the possibility. If only he could see Dean. Lips don’t lie.

But the damage is done, he can feel the cracks in his ribs, the fractures, sharp and precise, cutting through his body. Bloodsucking freak. Monster.   
These hurt, of course they do. But that’s not the worst of it.

It’s the cutting edge of Dean’s voice. A knife peeling Sam’s heart, fragile layer after fragile layer. It’s a voice Sam’s never heard before, not his brother’s, not the voice of someone who whispered dandelion wishes against the slope of Sam’s spine. It’s not the voice that kissed prayers against Sam’s lips, or the one that laughed quietly like a cheap sunrise in his ear.

It’s a voice that don’t belong to the lips Sam loves so much. It’s not his brother. Not anymore. 


	24. On the road

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt #24: Impala

It’s a nursery and a playground when they’re still kids. Little boys tucked together in the backseat and playing with legos. Dean always build houses, always the same one, over and over again. Yellow for the walls, blue for the door and windows, red for the chimney. Every once in a while, he stops Sam from swallowing the plastic pieces he keeps bringing to his mouth. **  
**

A couple of years later, it’s a school where recess comes when the gas tank is empty. There are books with half their pages missing littering the backseat, a couple of crayons and still legos, although a lot less than there were when they got them. Dean has stopped building houses. He’s stopped building _the_ house.

Time passes and it’s now a bedroom too small for a man, a teenager and a boy. Time spent out of the car is cherished, and at the same time it’s relief Sam feels when he goes back in when they need to get a move on. He’s getting taller and he has to fold himself in the small space the car offers, while Dean is riding shotgun, but he feels safe there. For a few hundred miles, he knows his place in this world. And it might only be in the backseat of an old Chevy, but it’s enough. For now.

When their shadows stretch bigger than they ever have, the car has become something else. Something new. A _she_. When Sam looks at her where she’s parked across from him in the parking lot of their latest motel, he doesn’t really knows what he sees.    
Dean stares at her like she’s a book of prayers laying forgotten on an altar. A treasure and fate rolled up into one beautiful metallic beast. Some days Sam will find Dean working on it, sweating on the engine and checking the pressure in the tires. He cares more about the car than he does about himself. Sam’s still in front of her in Dean’s list of priorities, but it’s a close call.  
That’s why Sam loves his brother so much. Because Dean doesn’t keep anything, doesn’t do sentimentality. But the Impala is something else. A friend, family, a house, a partner, a shelter.

When they decide to stop fighting and just drive, drive forth until they reach the end of the road, the car is as much part of them as they are a part of her. There’s no Impala without Sam and Dean, but there’s also no Sam and Dean without the Impala. Paperbags litter the backseat. Grains of salt find their way everywhere. There are memories hidden under the leather, safely tucked away where nothing can get them. There are hands holding the wheel, and a cassette tape in the audio player. The sound of the engine covers it all, and they keep driving, unafraid and comfortable, because they are home.


	25. Bone at my bone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt #25: Wanderer & Seeker

There are two shadows. Or maybe it’s just one. It’s hard to tell. One drapes itself in a coat a light, while the other chases it away with impatient hands. **  
**

One is a little boy with a heart as big as his pockets are empty. He just has three letters he can call his own and cherish without fear they’ll be taken away from him. Three. Just like the sun. Just like his family. A mother he can’t remember, a father he sometimes wants to forget, a big brother he hopes he’ll never have to miss. Sam wakes every morning in a different bed, and wishes everytime he were somewhere else. He’s seen dawns in nowhere towns, and dusks in enough states that he knows the stars always look the same, no matter where. He stares up up up and wonders if maybe his mother is one of them, and if she is, wonders why she doesn’t guide him. You can only be lost if there’s a place where you wouldn’t be. Sam’s been looking for it all his life, each minute biting his pretty little heart in two. Four letters. It could be home. It could be Dean.

Dean’s pockets are also empty. But he’s not alone. Because he remembers delicate hands brushing his cheeks and soft lips kissing his forehead. He remembers strong arms holding him up and stubble-coated smiles. He can still see in technicolor Sam’s first steps toward him, that giddy little smile and boyish laughter. Sam, Sam, Sam. There’s a lot of Sam in Dean’s heart. Enough to fill the cracks and keep his mind awake and hungry. There are teeth growing in the tender part of himself only Sam’s ever touched, consciously or not. Dean is not alone, but he’s lonely.

He keeps walking to stop his feet from turning into roots, keeps following a shadow that was always smaller than his, no matter what. Meets and forgets cardboard faces and paper thin bodies. Pain is braided like barbed wire around his heart, so black no sky can squeak through. Except maybe three letters. It could be the sun. It could be Sam.

This is how it starts. With two shadows. Or maybe it’s just one. It’s hard to tell.


	26. When tomorrow tasted like tears

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt #26: The Cage

The Cage is not what Sam expected. He didn’t really have a particular picture in mind, but it definitely was not this. Nothing. Gray. Some days there are hooks and flames, a parody of torture that Sam is not sure he wants to survive. He finds in each wound pains of a lifetime, doesn’t understand how it’s possible but has to suffer through it all the same. He screams, thrashes and begs. But he does not cry. He remembers what sunlight tastes on Dean’s skin, and his whimpers die like waves on the shore.  
They break his fingers one by one, suck on his bones and tear parts of his flesh with their teeth. He remembers gentle touches and pillow soft lips, remembers being a god on someone else’s tongue. He does not cry. 

The memories are not his anymore. Whatever is in his mind, Lucifer and Michael see it. All his life on display, his intimacy violated with a cruelty Sam was never prepared to fight against. The Cage is big, endless, but Sam can not escape. He lets them stain each and every one of his memories, break them one after the other in a deadly game. Dad’s rare bout of laughter, mirth in his eyes and crinkles at their corners that should have made him look older but did just the opposite.  
Jess curling up against him when they would watch horror movies in their ratty apartment, swearing under her breath that it’s the last time she’s letting Sam pick the movie. How she felt against him, soft but strong and so anchored in his life Sam never really got past the awe he felt every morning he woke up with her by his side. 

And Dean. Of course. Dean with beer foam all over his upper lip, licking it obscenely. Dean stealing candy from a gas station’s counter, not because they’re low on cash but because “free stuff always tastes better”.    
Dean’s petty prank wars, Dean’s unrestrained laughter, Dean walking barefoot, Dean kissing him. Them having sex on a worn down motel bed in broad daylight, unapologetic and determined to make  _ this _ , whatever they are - were - something that doesn’t exist only during the night. All the memories are plucked from his brain and turned to ashes, and Lucifer and Michael don’t have to lay a single finger on him to break him apart And Sam does not cry, but he wants to. 

It lasts forever, it lasts a second. The Cage is endless and timeless. It’s dull grays that Sam stares at while two brothers destroy each other in eternal battles. Better here than on Earth, that’s what Sam tells himself the first decades. Until he forgets, what life was like, what grass looks like, what shapes clouds can take.  
They rarely use him as a punching bag. Sam might be strong enough to trap the devil in his own body, but he’s still infinitely weaker than they are. There’s nothing satisfactory in breaking every single one of his bones time after time. They get bored in the middle of their skinning sessions, complain when he stops making noises after they cut his tongue out and he chokes on his blood. They plunge their fists in his chest and squeeze his soul, dig their claws inside and watch his agony with detached curiosity. He’s nothing but pain and tears, but he does not let them fall.

The Cage never changes. Gray becomes gray becomes gray. Sam loses his memories and doesn’t remember the color of being alive. His hands become translucent,leaves so thin he can barely feel their weight anymore. His body gives up on him after the first fifty years. It’s longer than he expected. He’s not sure what’s left of him, believes it’s an echo of what he once was. He has just his emotions left. He can’t explain why but he still has memories. He can’t see them, can’t put dates and places and names to them but he can still feel. He remembers the smell of cookies and it fills him with warmth. He remembers the sound of wet mud and feels scared. He remembers the rumble of a car’s engine and feels… at peace. 

It’s only normal that they take that away from him too. It takes some time but this is the only thing they have plenty of in the Cage. At that point, it’s hard to determine who came from Hell and who came down from Heaven. Sam can’t fight anymore so he lets it happen. They take what was left of him until he’s just a hollow shell, empty of feelings and emotions, empty of life.  
He doesn’t forget the smell of cookies, the sound of wet mud or the rumble of the engine. But they don’t stir anything in him. The Cage is an empty void, and after a century of torture, Sam becomes one as well. He doesn’t cry. 


	27. When it's just you and me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt #27: Undercover

It’s always the same ritual, case after case. For each situation is a life they create for themselves. They put on cheap suits and dig in the glove box of the car to find an appropriate badge. FBI, US marshals, Homeland security, rectangles of plastic with fake smiles on blurry pictures. They have stolen enough names that their own feel like a treasure, a gift that rewards the few people who prove themselves worthy of knowing Sam and Dean Winchester. For the rest of the world, they’re an endless string of John, Paul, Marty, Jeff, Tim, Phil, Carter, Alex, Allan, and so on, disposable names for disposable people.  

They diligently take notes for the articles they will never write in the local paper, for their non-existing editor. They play with fire and walk around as “bikini inspectors”, “half-ambidextrous scribe”, “playground trapeze”, carry around names of rockstars, actors, pornstars. They always pull it off because they’re confident, because for each case, they’re someone else, an ephemeral life they actually believe in. They iron white shirts in their shitty motel room, and tie their ties for each other. It feels true, and sometimes even a relief, to be someone else. Working undercover is a necessity as much as it is a perk of their job, because secrecy protects them when they’re being chased by monsters that work from 9 to 5 and pay their taxes.  

It all comes to a halt when the sun sinks below the horizon and they’re left bare for the other to see. No suits, no stolen identities, no imaginary backstory. They’re just Sam and Dean, no last name necessary.  
_Will you still love me when I’m just me?_

They take off their clothes and their identities stay tangled in the belt loops of their carefully ironed pants. They sink to their knees and the lies they told twirl above their heads, stuck like dust particles in the air. The last remnants of names that were never their own are licked away from each other’s mouths. It takes more touches, reassurances and careful words, but eventually they find themselves as naked as their intertwined bodies, and from the tangle of skin and limbs, it’s hard to tell them apart. But all of it, the crinkles at the corners of green green green eyes, the dimples framing a soft and intimate smile, the freckles peppered like the sun’s own little kisses all over a pale skin, the sweat pooling in the hollow of a throat, the brown strands of hair falling on a tanned forehead, all of it rings true and unique.

They’re Sam and Dean again, if only for a night. Until the world catches up and starts his mad race again. For a few suspended hours, they leave the lies behind, and exist only in each other’s eyes.


	28. Small soldiers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt #28: Cigarettes

Sam’s only fourteen, still smaller than him, the first time Dean catches him smoking. Dad’s been gone for three whole weeks now, and the more this crappy little town of Iowa feels like home, the more Dean is getting antsy. It’s not gonna end well, it never does when they see the sun rise from the same spot over and over again. It’s been twenty one days, twenty one dawns where they wake up with the same roof above their heads. Everything seems familiar, and usually that means it’s gonna go bad. He doesn’t expect it to go bad _before_ dad comes back though. **  
**

But Sam is always full of surprises, lanky boy with lanky bones and an earth-shattering gaze. Dean finds him sitting cross-legged on the parking lot of the motel they’re staying in, staring at the smoke he’s holding in his hand.

He looks frail in Dean’s old Zeppelin shirt. That shirt is for shapeless Sundays, where they have nothing to do and spend the day watching reruns of old movies on the crappy television, throwing popcorn at the screen or each other. That shirt is a home for Sam’s shoulders when he feels lazy, comfortable, safe. Three things he’s definitely not in that parking lot.

For a second Dean doesn’t know how to react, can only stare as Sam raises the smoke to his cotton candy pink lips and inhales deeply, cheeks hollowing in something unconsciously obscene. He keeps the smoke in for a couple of seconds, eyes never leaving the ashes piling up on top of his burning cigarette. And then he lets the smoke out, mouth turning into a perfectly shaped “o”. It leaves goosebumps on Dean’s arms, and a murderous rage grows in his lungs. That’s just what he needs to unlock his legs, and he rushes forward, yelling at the top of his lungs and not caring one bit if the whole town hears him.

“What the hell are you doing?!”

Sam doesn’t lift his head but his shoulders tense. His whole body goes rigid like an iron band just squeezed his ribs a little too tight. He tenses the way he does when he hears their cellphone ringing on the room table, knowing full well that there’s only one person that has this number. Dean hates that Sam reacts to him the same way he reacts to dad. Fourteen. Only fucking fourteen.

Sam doesn’t answer, just shrugs when Dean finally reaches him and grabs Sam’s hand, snatching the cigarette away and dumping it on the hot asphalt.

“What are you thinking? Don’t you think there are enough stuff out there trying to kill you?”   
He steps on the cigarette viciously, quietly seething and Sam doesn’t say anything, doesn’t argue, doesn’t look at Dean with big-doe eyes or a lethal glare.

“What’s one more then?”, Sam whispers, bony boy Dean tries to not fall in love with. There is something so wrong about his tone that it cuts Dean short, makes him sit beside Sam and study his brother’s face with tender looks. That’s all he can offer, a paperbag full of his greasy love, junk food that will clog Sam’s arteries one day, until his heart can’t take it anymore.

He stares at the drawn lines of Sam’s face, the quiet sadness and the heavy slump of his shoulders. He can see the pale outline of Sam’s collarbone where the collar of his shirt is hanging loose. Dean sees it then. It’s not his brother who is wearing the shirt. It’s the other way around.

“I don’t want to leave, Dean”.

Another whisper, because anything louder would shatter this moment to pieces, would make it something more than they can afford it to be. Just like that, Dean knows that dad must have called and is probably on his way. Dean’s heart sink at the bottom of his shoes, and there is nothing he can say to that, nothing he can do to make Sam feel better. He reaches around Sam with his arm and lets it rest around Sam’s shoulders, holding as much as he can. He could break him.

“I’m sorry Sammy.”

Sam relaxes minutely against him, something Dean wouldn’t notice if he hadn’t rewrote his entire existence around his little brother. It doesn’t feel like victory. Sam sighs, and then reaches inside his jeans’ pockets. He takes out a pack of Lucky strikes, opening the lid slowly and holding it open towards Dean.

“Want one?”


	29. Think I'll miss you forever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt #29: Summertime sadness

It’s a slow process, but they have an entire summer ahead of them, and it will be enough. Has to be. The sun is gentle on their skins, and this is exactly what they’re going to need. A light and warm agony, bathed in vibrant colors where pained groans are replaced by the rhythmic hissing of cicadas.   
Dean knows, has known for a while now. And they’ve both been hurt enough times that they know there’s no such thing as a “clean break”. So they decide to build a splint, to care for the wound before it breaks open inside their chests. 

It starts with a puzzle. Two puzzles. July is a crib for summer dreams but they have something much more important to do. Hands go back to their rightful owners, slot themselves back in the spots they vacated a lifetime ago. It feels foreign, to learn all over again what it’s like to touch something that used to be yours but isn’t anymore.   
Names leave the tongues where they’ve built their nests for decades, and find the mouths they should never have left in the first place. It doesn’t taste or sound like anything anymore. Sam. Dean. Could be anyone, could be no one. 

By the time the month ends they’re not sleeping in the same bed anymore. They’re still in the same room, because loneliness is an ugly beast and quitting cold turkey is not gonna do them any good. Sam forces himself to not leave a single part of himself tangled in the sheets, and in exchange Dean keeps his light snoring to his own pillow and his own ears. The nights are silent but hot and full of stars. It’s the most beautiful coffin they could wish for. 

They share their last kiss on the first day of August. It seems fitting. Something ends, something else starts. That’s how life is supposed to be. The kiss is soft and doesn’t last too long, because they’ve been working hard for a month now, and they both know that it would only take a couple of extra stolen seconds to ruin it all. Their tongues aren’t too greedy, and despite the stifling heat it feels like kissing a ghost. 

It ends when they untangle their heartbeats. It’s late August when they find themselves alone inside their own ribcages. Sam is going to leave in a couple of days, duffel bag already packed and ready. They sit side by side on a patch of burnt grass, sipping on lukewarm beers and staring at everything but each other. Sam leaves for California early on a chill September morning, and they don’t speak. They’ve spent two months saying goodbye already. 


	30. One night forever love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt #30: Another Tuesday

The first Tuesday _after_ , Sam doesn’t want to get out of bed. He stares at the cracks on the ceiling and listens as Dean takes a shower and goes out to bring back breakfast. While Dean is out, Sam stays in bed, alone and in silence, daring the world to ask anything of him. The bagels Dean brings back are lumpy and tasteless, the coffee is more water than actual coffee. That’s not what makes Sam want to vomit.

The second Tuesday _after_ , Sam spends the day at the library. They’re working a case in Ohio and Dean is out interrogating witnesses. Sam keeps glancing at the round ticking clock that’s hanging on the wall. He hates that he’s counting the seconds but panics when he skips one. He checks his phone every ten minutes, forces himself not to do it every five. It takes Dean four hours to send him a text telling him he’s heading back to get Sam, and if Sam can please stop having nerdgasms between the shelves and wait for Dean outside.  
Sam spent four hours in the library and he hasn’t read a single word. When he hears the rumble of the Impala’s engine and sees the familiar figure behind the wheel, he allows himself to breathe again.

The third Tuesday _after_ , they dig up a grave. It’s fucking ironical, is what Sam thinks. It’s when Dean flicks his zippo and the tiny flame basks his chin in warm orange that the spirit starts to protest. Dean is flung over a whole row of graves and he falls head first against the marble of a tomb. Sam doesn’t breathe the whole time it takes him to fetch the lighter from where Dean dropped it in the grass, flick it and throw it in the grave. The spirit disappears with anguished screams and Sam doesn’t give a shit, just runs to where his brother is groaning and bleeding on the ground. There’s a big gash on his forehead but Dean is grinning like a maniac. Sam doesn’t talk to him for two days.

The fourth Tuesday _after_ , Dean is sick with the flu. In August. Which doesn’t make any sense but Sam stopped trying to make sense of anything in their lives a long time ago. If Death wants to play that kind of tricks, that’s fine. They’ve dealt with worse. And at least it’s warm enough that Dean can cough his lungs out outside. He whines and grumbles like it’s the end of the world, looks at Sam so pathetically Sam has to bite the inside of his cheeks to stop from smiling. Because that’s the thing. Sam feels _elated_ with how happy it makes him to see Dean like this, and yes, he’s aware that it makes him a real asshole. But Dean is so alive in his sickness that Sam - almost - wishes Dean could stay sick for just a few more days.

The fifth Tuesday _after_ , Sam wakes up with a hand between his legs and lips brushing the shell of his ear. He’s warm and content and for half a second he doesn’t remember which day it is. He tenses when his treacherous mind reminds him, the lips that are now nipping at his jaw come closer to his mouth. “You gotta let it go Sam”. That’s what he hears right before Dean’s lips  fall against his. He doesn’t ask what Dean is talking about, doesn’t insult either of them with the words. Instead he keeps his eyes closed and spreads his legs wider. They spend the day in bed, skin on skin and bone and bone. Sam loses count of the hours, of days and years. He spends this Tuesday just existing close to his brother, and that’s enough.


	31. For one

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt #30: First kiss

When Dean gets back from the small gas station that’s next to the motel they’re staying in, he almost drops the food he just bought on the stained carpet. That’s how it starts. Sam is sitting on the couch, wearing only his underwear and a faded blue tee-shirt that’s hanging loose on his thin frame.  
That’s not what has Dean dumping the bags on the table and kicking the door shut with his foot. What makes him rush forward is the purple blooming on Sam’s cheek, the split lip where angry knuckles kissed them, and the tear tracks on his cheeks.

There’s rage pooling inside Dean’s stomach, something untamed and terrifying because someone hurt his little brother and Dean already has a few hunts on his belt, knows what monsters look like, and knows how to kill them.

But right now, it’s not the answer Sam needs, with his domino-bones shaking everywhere and arms hugging his knees. His skin is porcelain pale and just as breakable. He doesn’t need Dean to ask him what happened, it’s pretty clear anyway, in all its purple, swollen, ugly glory. It’s not the first time Sam gets bullied in school. He’s too quiet, too grown up already to use his muscles and that brain of his to put down those who think that because they’re taller they’re stronger. Sam could take any one of those brats and get them to beg on their knees for him to let them go.  
But he doesn’t. Just lets them get a few kicks in for a reason that has Dean curling in hands into angry fists: it’s not worth it. Or maybe worse, _he_ ’s not worth it.

Dean doesn’t say a word, just sits on the couch next to Sam, and brings a hand on Sam’s back, rubbing small circles there and terrified he’s gonna break Sam in a million pieces. But that’s not what happens. Sam tenses for a second but then he’s melting against Dean, arms unclenching from around his knees and reaching to grab Dean, to hold him against him while he sobs with his head buried in Dean’s neck.

Dean’s heart is heavy in his chest, pounding in his chest for this miracle of a boy he doesn’t dare to call his brother. There is something fragile hanging in this room as he holds his brother close, ready to be destroyed by just the wrong word. So Dean holds his breath and stays with his arms around Sam, for what feels like forever and not nearly long enough. But then Sam raises his head, eyes shiny with tears and a drop of blood on his lip. Dean gets lost for a second, enough for him to be surprised when suddenly his brother’s lips are against his, pressing softly. Sam’s eyes are closed but Dean’s are wide open, along with his chest, his heart, his ribcage, all of himself bursting at the seams.

It’s quiet, silent, and not at all how Dean pictured this moment in his wildest fantasies. He can feel Sam’s tears slipping between their lips where they’re pressed together for the very first time. There’s salt and the taste of copper on his tongue when he tentatively licks Sam’s bottom lip. He’s kissing his brother and tastes homesickness, the kind of longing for places you’ve never been to settling in his heart.

There are no fireworks, no big explosion, just the steady drip of the leaking faucet in the bathroom.  The room is too cold, mold on the walls and humidity making the air heavy and damp. It’s a perfect place for broken hearts and an ugly nowhere, but as Sam buries his head again in Dean’s neck, a flush on his cheeks and not on single word on his clever tongue, Dean can’t help but think that this place, today, is also a bright forever.


	32. Heaven's kisses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt #32: Wild card - Prayers

Living like they do is a constant bargain on faith, a bet on the next minute and they’ve seen enough wings to know that even the heaviest souls can fly. So Dean doesn’t believe in God. He doesn’t pray, stopped a long time ago or indulges in it when his heart can’t take any more grief. It’s a bittersweet confession every time, and he never understands how Sam can still have faith today, after all these years.   
But Sam prays, has always prayed a lot. Dean’s just mistaken on what his brother’s praying for.

Sam prays for the heat to be unbearable, for Dean to sweat through his shirts and to ditch them at the next gas station. If he’s lucky, Dean will throw the shirt in his face and Sam will have half a second of Dean Dean Dean assaulting all his senses before he has to throw the shirt away from him with disgust written all over his face. It doesn’t matter that Sam sweats twice as much, that his jeans are glued to his skin and that his back sticks to the leather seat. It’s uncomfortable, gross, and Sam almost wants to whisper “amen” when he glances at Dean, shirtless in the driver’s seat, hands on the wheel and seatbelt digging in his skin.   
That’s the kind of things Sam prays for. 

He prays for great water pressure in the next motel they’ll stay in, and for the tiniest towels. He’s ready to clasp his hands as hard as he can, just in the hope that Dean will step out of the bathroom with a towel barely hanging off his hips, and not even reaching his knees. A flush on his cheeks, soft and warm skin, wet hair mussed and spiky, skin smelling of cheap soap and backroads epiphanies. Faith.  
He prays for hot nights when they don’t have share a bed, so that Dean will throw the covers off of him and lay in his underwear, tossing and turning in his bed like he’s fighting just as many monsters in his dreams as he does in his life. 

He prays for cold nights when they do end up sharing a bed. Dean hates being cold, will do anything to keep warm, up to and including cuddling up close to Sam shamelessly because “you’re a fucking furnace”. He doesn’t know he’s the one warming Sam up to the very core of his soul, God and his paradise be damned.   
He prays for forgiveness when he hopes the car will break down. Doesn’t feel guilty in the least when Dean buries himself under the hood, his shirt riding up on his lower back, revealing glistening skin and the muscles of his back moving under the fabric. Dean comes back up cursing and with grease on his face, and Sam has faith all over again, a whole religion where his brother becomes a god with a capital B. 

What do you believe in?  Sam could write a fucking bible of hopeless wishes, all of them four letters long.   
He prays for the next hunt to leave Dean with a split lip and purple violence blooming on his cheeks. He prays for Dean to get wasted in the next bar, for the lines of his face and the words on his tongue to soften. He prays for “Sammys”, for shit-eating grins and for cloudless nights. Sam prays, believes in a God he fell in love with when he turned fifteen. That’s what he prays for, eternal damnation with a smile and bloody knuckles. 


	33. Butterflies and hurricanes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt #33: Threesome

The very first time is like a strand of hair falling on a forehead. It’s an accident, something random, and a small ripple barely visible at the surface of a quiet lake. Just a fluttering of wings, and the birth of a hurricane. **  
**

Sam walks in their motel room while Dean is fucking a girl, in Sam’s bed. She’s all dark glistening skin where she’s laying on her back on the ratty mattress, gorgeous curves and bouncing tits. She’s just Dean’s type, Sam thinks distantly. He hears a grunted “S’ok, s’my brother” when the girl turns her head to look at Sam, and that’s how it starts. Dean doesn’t even falter in his thrusts, doesn’t turn his head to acknowledge Sam. He keeps going, moving his hips at a punishing rhythm while the girl’s heels dig into the small of his back. She’s mewling on the bed, moaning like she’s never been fucked this good in her life. It’s possible that it’s true.

Sam is simultaneously horrified, pissed off, and something else he doesn’t want to put a word on because he’s not nearly drunk enough for the shape of its letters on his tongue. The sight is mesmerizing enough that he starts when he hears Dean’s breathless voice.

“Wanna watch?”

There’s enough slurring in there to know that Dean’s had a few too many at the bar earlier, but the fact that he just offered for Sam to stay and watch him fuck someone is really what makes Sam know his brother is truly hammered. Instead of answering, Sam flees out of the room and spends the next half hour driving aimlessly and refusing to acknowledge his hard-on. He forgets to be mad about his bed.

The next time Dean asks, Sam stays.  
The girl winks at him when he sits gingerly on a chair and refuses to sprawl, to get comfortable. He figures if he stays at least he has to make sure he doesn’t enjoy a single second of it. He tries his best to look at the girl, only the girl. He tries to convince himself it’s her tits bouncing up and down while she’s riding Dean that have him growing hard in his pants, tells himself it’s her gasps and moans that make him squirm. The obscene slap slap slap of skin on skin is filling his ears, and he doesn’t listen to Dean’s panting, doesn’t stare at his tanned hand where it’s gripping the girl’s porcelain thigh hard enough to leave bruises. Later that night, Sam doesn’t lock himself in the bathroom because he now knows what Dean sounds like when he comes. He does it and strips his cock in hard and fast strokes because of the sight of the girl arching her back and rolling her hips.  
Sam is a fucking liar.

It goes on like this for a while, often enough that Sam can’t even deny the flutter in his stomach when he comes back to nameless motel rooms sure that Dean is in there with a girl. He never remembers their faces, never questions how willing and unfazed they all are to let a guy in on the fun. He doesn’t know their names, forgets their faces as soon as the night is over, but in his mind there’s a full collection of every single one of Dean’s expressions while he’s having sex. It doesn’t mean anything.

And then there’s her.

She sees right through him, and it’s a testimony of how screwed they are when Sam steps in the room and her eyes snap to meet his immediately. She’s not nearly as unfocused as she should be while having sex with Dean Winchester. She’s got red hair falling in waves around little bird shoulders, sweat making her skin shiny, and matching patches of red on her cheeks.  
At this point, Dean doesn’t ask anymore, Sam just sits in the chair that’s always oh so conveniently placed right in front of one of the beds. It’s random, all of it, Sam would rather douse himself with gasoline before admitting it’s not.

He sits there for a while, guilty beyond words whenever he catches her looking at him looking at Dean. He’s hard as nails in his jeans and can’t do anything, eyes drifting to Dean’s strong thighs, to the perfect globes of his ass, pale and smooth, to the curve of his back, the hard notch at the top of his spine. Dean has his head between her legs and she’s got one hand holding his head and the other toying with her tit. Her eyes are slits but her voice is clear when she speaks, eyes riveted to Sam.

“Touch me.”

“What?!”

The sound comes out of Sam’s mouth but also out of Dean’s, and the muffled exclamation would be comical if Dean wasn’t snapping his head up to look between Sam and the girl with something like terror on his face.

“You heard me”, she purrs, eyes never leaving Sam and her hand gently pushing Dean’s head back between her open legs, “Touch me”.

Sam feels terribly small under that burning gaze. The girl’s lashes flutter when Dean puts his tongue back to a better use, the crimson on his cheeks the only clue that he’s freaking out as bad as Sam. Sam’s legs are trembling when he gets up but he obeys, walks closer to the bed, posture rigid and not sure he shouldn’t leave, because this is fucked up, more than spying on his brother having sex, more than sitting and watching at a reasonable distance, more than the burning pit of want in his stomach.

But Sam goes and once he’s close enough, the girl grabs his hand and tugs. Sam stumbles and almost falls right on top of her, knees digging in the mattress and he hovers above her. He doesn’t want to but there’s a challenge in her eyes, and she gasps audibly, making Sam’s eyes glancing down for just a half second, just long enough to see Dean’s mouth, a flash of his tongue, where he’s licking her relentlessly. It’s over before it begins but when Sam looks back at her, her eyes are screaming “gotcha”.

He doesn’t realize she’s still holding his hand before she moves it and puts it on her tit. It gets easier with that and he’s so grateful, so fucking grateful he almost kisses her right there, would if he thought this was something she wanted. Instead he gives her everything else. His lips and his hands on her boobs, touching and licking. He mouths at her collarbone and bites in the tender skin of her neck. He sucks bruises into her skin and she holds him close, trembles under him when she orgasms. He never touches Dean.

When the girl regains her senses, she gracefully rolls on her stomach and gets to her knees, crawling like a cat towards Dean who’s sitting gingerly on the bed and who looks like the prey for possibly the first time in his life.

She goes down on him without a word, starts to move her head up and down, stopping only to gather the pearls of precome on the head of Dean’s cock with the tip of her tongue. Sam doesn’t think about it, just fumbles with his belt and gets his jeans and underwear down his thighs. He strokes himself with almost brutal strokes, just this side of painful and almost punishing. He stares at the girl’s mouth where it’s stretched around Dean’s dick, stares at her hand fondling Dean’s balls, and Sam knows without a doubt that things will never be the same after tonight. He hears a choked gasp and he eyes snap to Dean’s, who’s staring right back at Sam and right then, Sam tumbles over the edge. He comes all over his fist and all he sees is green green green.  
He feels weak, but his guilt fades a little when he looks at the girl again and sees her licking her lips, Dean’s cock slowly softening between his legs.

An hour later Dean is out cold on the bed, stark naked, and she leaves quietly, kissing Dean’s head fondly. She stops by Sam’s bed and looks at him for a while. He stares back and she smiles at him, a soft and intimate “it’s gonna be alright” curl of her lips, a silent kiss on his cheeks that makes him believe her.

In North Dakota they go to a bar and get wasted, talk about their taste in girls. The next night there’s a girl who matches Sam’s taste to a T in their room. In Maryland, a goddess with dark skin and red red lips says “There you are!” when Sam walks in the room. In Iowa Sam kisses a girl right after she sucked Dean off. He can taste his brother’s come on her tongue. In California, there’s a brunette between his legs and when she hollows her cheeks, Sam grips the nearest thing, which happens to be Dean’s knee. In Florida, Sam licks a girl’s clit while Dean is pounding her from behind, and blames it on the whisky when he tastes the latex of Dean’s condom once or twice. In New Jersey there’s a blonde in Sam’s laps who asks them to kiss each other. In Oklahoma, they do. In New Mexico, Sam comes with his cock buried inside a newly divorced-lawyer, and the pad of Dean’s finger toying with his rim. In Pennsylvania, they fuck a girl at the same time, eyes never leaving each other.  In Nevada, they pick up the girl together.   
Sam doesn’t remember any of those girls’ names, and every time they spend the night like that, they touch her a little less and each other a little more.

This one’s got fire in her veins, can never get enough of them. Sam knew she’d be great when he saw her eyeing them both at the bar, saw how her eyes lit up when they both came up to her. She’s better than great. She wants them both, makes them touch her and touch each other. Sam is so grateful he could cry. Her skin is smooth and delicate, she’s a graceful killer, warm and wet where he’s pushing inside of her, but all of it is nothing, nothing compared to the kiss he’s sharing with Dean. He tastes tequila and lemon on his brother’s tongue, as usual, but every time it’s a little less alcohol and a little more Dean. He fucks her hard while Dean fondles her breasts, and she comes not even ten minutes after they all settled on the bed.

Sam is still kissing Dean when she rolls out of bed and starts to gather her clothes. They don’t even have time to ask her what she’s doing before she’s dressed and stepping out of the room, throwing a “It’s been great, see ya guys!” over her shoulder before closing the door.

They stay frozen on the bed, both naked and both hard, unable to move and to look at each other now that there’s no one to use as a shield for what’s been really happening between them for months now.   
Sam is looking at the mattress when he mutters, “I should, uh, I’ll just-”, with his hand vaguely pointing in the direction of the bathroom.

Dean clears his throat and Sam doesn’t look at him but he knows his brothers is rubbing the back of his neck, embarrassed beyond words.

“Uh, yes, yeah ok, I’ll go after you’re done”.

Sam doesn’t want to think about how Dean never, ever, lets Sam do anything before him if he can help it. It’s in the big brother contract, he will never let Sam do anything first. But he does, right there, and Sam hates it, hates what it means. He can’t let this go, can’t put these girls in the back of his mind until next time, hoping that she’ll get off fast and then be just there as a jewel, pretty but useless without a body to decorate. Sam can’t let this go, so he swallows past the lump in his throat and raises his head, looks at Dean until he catches his brother’s gaze.

“Or I could stay here…”

The silence weighs a ton but there won’t ever be a better time, so Sam shoulders on.

“Dean, should I stay here?”

It sounds weak and afraid but it’s all Sam can manage right now, the one small step toward Dean and now his brother has to do the same, if they both want this. The ensuing silence is the most terrifying moment of Sam’s life, but it’s worth it for the barely audible “yes” that tumbles from Dean’s lips.

There are no more motel rooms with two beds after that. There are no more girls either.


	34. From beginning to end

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt #34: First words, last words

Your name is his first word, clumsy and thick on his baby tongue, and your insides twist on themselves, warmth spreading like a deep ache inside your stomach to the tip of your little boy’s toes. There are branches growing inside your arms, golden leaves reaching for the sound of his voice. You see his wide toothless grin and know that your entire existence with revolve around that pink mouth and those wide happy eyes. You shape yourself into the safest house he can dream of, make doors and windows out of your hands until your body is a little less yours and a little more his. He says “Dean”, fat baby cheeks round and red like freshly picked apples, and this is his very first word. You will never be happier than on that specific day.

You bury everything that’s in between. In all the good stories, what matters is how it starts and how it ends. There are rainy days and soundless nights. He grows into a boy, a little lost inside his own body. You forget the angry fists and the forked tongue. You don’t remember when he started to punch holes in the walls you’ve built lovingly around him, when his only thought became to get _out out out_. You want to yell that you never meant to build a prison, but he stopped listening to you a while ago. He’s so devastatingly beautiful in his anger that you can’t help but fall a little in love with his heartbreak.

You forgive his hate, step on your own because there’s something that will never change, one truth that no one can take away from you. One day, he opened his mouth, and your name rolled off his tongue. Easy, effortless, natural. No one can take that away from you, not even him.  
He leaves you with the same word, murmured against the crook of your neck at a bus stop that smells of piss and cold ashes. It doesn’t feel right, the warm puff of air against your skin when the word is laced with sorrow. It’s painful to watch him go, downright tragic to know, deep down, that he’ll be _happier_ away. From you, from your house-shaped ribcage, from the overwhelming thud of your beating heart.

You spend years in silence, trying to remember the sound of his voice, how your name sounded on those beloved lips. No one ever says your name like he did. How could they? There are hollows in the sharp corners of your body, elbows and knees locked tight because there is no softness left in you, not for anybody but him. Most days you don’t remember what it’s like to be someone.

It’s your name again, a new first, two decades after the first one. He’s pinned underneath you, body bigger than you remembered, but still so little, so fragile. He’s still your little brother in all the ways that count, but you drink him in, the unruly hair, the cherished mole next to his nose, the pointed tip of his nose. He’s so alive you could kiss his parted lips, could steal those panted breaths right from his mouth. He says your name, surprise and something else in each letter, and it’s good, so so good you’re glad only the moon gets to witness this. “Dean” It feels like a kiss for your ears only.

He pushes you right back and rolls you two over, until he’s the one over him and you want to tell him “it’s okay, it’s okay, I’m still yours”. It’s almost enough to forget the neon-sign question blinking red and dangerous in your mind, _areyoumineareyoumineareyoumine_?

You never get to listen to his last words, because you’re the first one to go. You feel a little selfish and a lot relieved. There’s grief buried in his bones and he doesn’t know how to go on in a world where you’re not here to hear him say your name. But you wait and care for him the best you can, thoughts leaving you in waves and perhaps if you’re lucky he can feel them like soft caresses on his skin.

You don’t know what he says last before he goes too, but it doesn’t really matter, because when he joins you, again, you see how his face changes when he spots you. You see this mouth you’ve spent your life dreaming of curving into a delicious smile, see the glint in his eyes. And it’s gonna be a first one too, another couple of first words for you to steal and cherish for all of eternity, but you know what he’s going to say even before he opens his mouth.

And when the word reaches your ears, it feels like summer again.

 


	35. Delicacy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt #35: bellyache, skull, mirror, ribbon

_ 42 _

Dean spots it somewhere between Kansas and Nebraska. He doesn’t have to ask Sam where he got the bracelet, it’s pretty clear, a neat circle of white letter beads, all spelling a bright and unapologetic “Daphne” in all its delicate ugliness.  
It stays around Sam’s bony wrist for a week, seven entire days that make Dean increasingly nervous and annoyed. He feels her presence in the car, the shadow of a girl he never knew but who only needed two weeks to make a lasting impression on his fifteen year old brother. Dean thinks about her in the motel rooms, the car, the diners where they eat, he feels her like the ghost of one of Sam’s memories, a part of his life Sam doesn’t share with Dean but that he cares about, and it drives Dean insane.   
Sam plays with it all the time, and sometimes Dean will catch him looking at the beads, his index tracing the letters. These moments are the worst, because Dean feels like an intruder, like he’s witnessing something private. He hates every nanosecond of it because privacy is always shared when you’re a Winchester. 

He wants the bracelet string to break, for the beads to get lost and disappear like this girl did from Sam’s life. He doesn’t know what she looks like, but gives her the luxury of his hate. It speaks volumes but Dean doesn’t think about it. 

_ 43 _

He only feels a little ashamed when the bracelet does break while Sam’s playing with it in the backseat of the car. Sam gasps and Dean turns around from where he’s sitting in the front seat, something vicious warming his bones. Sam’s wrist is bare and he looks sad, way more sad than he should be about the loss of the distant relique of an ephemeral fling in a nowhere town. Dad only glances in the rearview  mirror and grumbles,

“If you spilled something you better clean it Sam”.

And that’s the end of it.   
Sam spends the next twenty minutes looking under the seats for the beads, the Impala betraying Dean and letting Sam find them. He collects them in his palm, carefully, and Dean’s heart sinks at the bottom of his toes. 

Dean refuses to look again after that. He forces himself to not let his eyes gravitate towards Sam’s hands, because he’s not sure he can stomach seeing a new bracelet, seeing Sam building the memory again and clinging to it the way he never has for something else before. This is the kind of  bellyache Dean can’t deal with. The uncertainty is painful, but not as much as the confirmation of Dean’s fears would be. 

It’s three whole endless days later that Dean breaks his resolve. Dad leaves them in a motel room in Iowa while he heads for the next hunt, and Dean accidentally catches sight of the new bracelet while he and Sam are brushing their teeth. One second they’re shoving at each other to get to the sink first, the next Dean’s eyes are glued to Sam’s wrist. He doesn’t want to but he sees the letterbeads, can’t stop his eyes fast enough.  
Except this time, it’s not a girl’s name circling his brother’s wrist, and Dean’s heart stop. 

_ 44 _

There’s a wild pounding in his  skull and this, right now, is the one moment that will define all the others, the second that makes everything that happens  _ after _ completely irrelevant. It’s a second that scorch everything Dean ever thought he was, that consumes his entire existence.   
Sam catches Dean’s look, doesn’t realize that the world just tilted off its axis and he shrugs with an indifference that’s contradicted by the blush spreading on his cheeks. Dean’s ashes haven’t even reached the ground yet.

“I lost the P and the H”, is all he says, like it’s the only reason why the bracelet now says “Dean”, white letter beads stringed together around Sam’s wrist. Like that sentence is enough to explain. 

Dean swallows a mouthful of toothpaste and coughs for five minutes but it’s better than to try to find something to say. He manages a weak “s’cool” while that bracelet is pealing Dean’s heart one bleeding ribbon at a time. He suddenly regrets not looking sooner, has the urge to know exactly when Sam made it, where he found the new string, how many people saw it before Dean. He needs to know everything, needs to touch the beads and see how warm they are after an entire day touching Sam’s skin. He needs to see if Sam plays with them, needs to know if he does consciously or unconsciously. He’s not sure which one would be best. There’s not enough air in his lungs, not enough words for what’s happening in Dean’s mind, even if it can be explained with one name, his own, carefully placed where Sam’s crush’s was before. Dean hates Daphne a little less, even sends a silent thank you to her parents for gracing her with a name that has all the right letters in it.  

_ 45 _

The next morning he goes to the nearest gas station, and spends half an hour looking for beads with letters on them, buys a whole pack and steals another one, then gives the whole thing to Sam without looking at him. 

“If you wanna-, so you can write, whatever”

It’s the most eloquent Dean can be about this and Sam knows it so he just grins big and wide, doesn’t say thank you. It’s already written all over his face anyway. 

There’s always a bracelet on Sam’s wrist after that. Sometimes they break, sometimes Sam changes them before it happens. He collects the letterbeads and writes. When they fight, Sam wears a bracelet that says “jerk”, when they have to leave a place in a hurry, Sam wears a bracelet with the town’s name on it and makes sure their dad sees it as often as possible.  Sometimes it’s just Sam’s name. Often it’s Dean’s, and Dean has to swallow back his heart everytime, can’t remember the last time he got so obsessed with anything. He could draw Sam’s wrist in his dreams.  
And he counts, adds another day to his ever growing list when his eyes catch his name curled around Sam’s wrist, for yet another day. 

~

_ North Dakota, Dean’s alarm goes off at 6 am, and he clumsily gets out of bed. Between two yawns he shakes Sam’s awake, and steps aside when one of Sam’s hands tries to push him away. His eyes catch sight of the bracelet on Sam’s wrist, and he smiles.  
_ _ 46. _

 


	36. Given

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt #36 : day off

They don’t get to lay low for no reason. There’s always something forcing them to take a day off, a faraway threat shining scarlet red on the horizon, that make the day heavy and where each minute spent doing nothing is carefully calculated. Those days sounds like a trigger being cocked, like a clock ticking its way to the end of the world. Doing nothing for the sake of doing nothing is a luxury they rarely indulge into. 

They can count the days that are different. For so many reasons.Nothing to be but a whispered name on each other’s tongues. No evil to run after or pain to run from. The days are weightless when they’re meant for their two sets of eyes only. Morning comes and the beds stay silent, sheets heavy with kisses and promises that left stains on the mattress the previous night. It’s a slow awakening, a quiet miracle when no alarm goes off, when eyes blink open on their own, dreams still clinging to tired eyelashes. 

The first words come later, warm as coffee and sugary sweet as fresh pancakes. It’s another miracle, that smells of burned toast and looks like carefree smiles. It never happens, but they speak to say nothing, let their breaths mingle at the breakfast table while the planet turns.   
The sun rises and they stay hidden to the world. The day is already a ghost in their shared memory, ready to touch their cheeks at the most unexpected moment, to be there as a gentle reminder that there is beauty to protect and cherish, even when everything looks like hollow darkness. 

Driving with no destination in mind, recording a new tape, reading the last chapter of a book started months ago. Falling a little more in love. Opening beers to celebrate nothing, settling in the couch and watching movies seen in theaters a lifetime ago. Making the bed. Shaving. Cooking for two. Living just as one. 

They end the day the way they started it, in comfortable silence. It speaks of familiarity, of years of getting trained to hear the smallest noise when all that matters is hidden in layers of silence, lighter than lace, scarves made out of secrets that wrap prettily around their throats. The day dies curved like the neck of a swan, but the seconds they could stole are tucked away. For a handful of hours the world held its breath, and that’s all they could ever hope for. 

 


	37. Secret paths

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt #37: Maps

The map’s been folded and unfolded so many times some roads have disappeared, rivers and cities erased by tired paper. They use it every once in a while, when dad doesn’t want to admit that they’re lost or when road blocks force them to take detours. Some people know their hometown like their backpocket. Dad is the same, with the entire country.  
So nowadays the map stays in Sam’s duffel bag. It’s a dirty little secret he keeps hidden from prying eyes. Dad doesn’t care enough to look through Sam’s things, Dean cares too much to even try. But Sam doesn’t take chances, and keeps the map safely tucked away, ready to pretend he doesn’t know how it ended up in his bag should he need to, ready to pretend it’s not his most prized possession.

In Ohio, Sam begs prettily, rubs his naked ass against Dean’s crotch, feels how hard his brother is under that offending layer of denim and he moans, forked tongue and sugary sweet in Dean’s ears. “Come on, come on, come on”. He bites Dean’s earlobe and Dean’s hands are shaking where they lay uselessly against his leg. Oh how sweet it would be to just grab them and put them on Sam’s bare thigh, to feel those calloused palms rub Sam’s babysoft skin.  
But Dean won’t budge. Not yet. Because Sam is fifteen and Dean still believes this is a phase. Sam comes with a shout muffled against Dean’s neck, and when he comes down for his high feels trembling hands rubbing his back in soothing circles, like Sam’s the one who needs to be held. Sam adds a cross on his map, traps that nowhere town in Ohio on paper forever, and knows it’s only a matter of time before Dean gives up.

There are seven crosses on the map the next time dad asks to see it and he tells Sam to stop writing on it. Sam shrugs and says “I thought you didn’t need maps anyway” and gets a glare as an answer. It’s enough to stir the conversation in a different direction. Dad mumbles about the quickest way to get back on the highway and Sam doesn’t listen to him, just stares at the way Dean is frowning next to dad, eyes jumping from one cross to the other, trying to figure out why Sam put them there. He’s gnawing on his bottom lip, and Sam knows what his brother his thinking, knows that it’s pissing Dean off that there’s something in those crossed towns that means something to Sam and he doesn’t know what. Sam has to adjust his pants when he thinks about how this gorgeous face would look like if he were to tell Dean right now that in all these towns Dean got hard for his little brother.

They’re staying at Bobby’s for a while, and it’s barely eight when Sam tiptoes in the kitchen to find Dean getting breakfast ready. He can hear dad and Bobby snoring in the next room and knows that both of them stayed up late working on whatever it is they’re working on that Sam and Dean aren’t allowed to help with. Dean doesn’t hear him getting closer and Sam closes his eyes when he plants a soft kiss on Dean’s neck. He hears Dean’s gasp but Dean doesn’t push him away, even melts a little against him when Sam gets closer and circles his waist. He holds Dean against him in a way he’d never get away with if Dean was a little more awake. It hasn’t been long since he became taller than his brother but he can feel it now, when he has to angle his head down to keep his lips against Dean’s neck.   
His morning wood rides the crease of Dean’s ass and Dean doesn’t move. In the next room dad and Bobby are going to wake up in just a minute, and Sam already knows that there will be a cross right on Sioux Falls on his map before the day is over.  

There are a dozen crosses on the map by the time Sam turns sixteen. A path of missed opportunities and of Dean breaking, one dreamy sigh at a time. There’s not a single day that goes by without Sam stealing a kiss from his brother, and without Dean returning it. The map stays in the duffel bag, a confession for everyone to see, and when dad asks for it, he scolds Sam for writing notes on it, again. Sam shrugs but doesn’t apologize, can’t feel sorry because this map is the closest he can be to Dean’s flushed cheeks, the wet spot on the front of his jeans, the slight tremble of his eyelashes. This is better than a skin mag, and heat is pooling in Sam’s stomach when he watches dad looking at the map, unaware that he’s staring at bead crumbs left by a whole new kind of monster.

Dean is chanting “Sammy, oh God, Jesus” and Sam glows bright and sacred on top of his brother’s list of holy names to call brokenly when he comes. Sam’s fingers come out of Dean’s underwear covered in translucent white, and Sam’s stomach rebels, screams for a taste of Dean’s surrender. He brings his fingers to his lips and licks them clean, one after the other. The whine that reaches his ears doesn’t come from his come-coated tongue, and that’s why Sam uses a red pen to add a cross just on Larwill, Indiana. It’s a painful surrender and it sounds like Hallelujah.

Dad asks for the map in Florida when the Bear Creek river floods the road between Montgomery and Selma. It’s raining and dad is frowning at the map, cursing a blue streak because he can’t see anything and they’re not gonna make it to their next destination by night, but Sam is so tuned to his brother’s everything that he hears Dean’s choked off gasp more than he does dad’s curses. His eyes fly up to Dean’s face, who looks at the map with wide eyes, pale as a sheet safe for the two spots of red on his cheeks, growing bigger by the second. And Sam smirks because he knows that Dean got it, his shame written all over the country and dad looking at it right now. Dean throws Sam a disbelieving look, but there’s not enough anger on this face and too much adoration for it to hurt Sam’s feelings. So he does what he always wants to do when he catches Dean looking at him. He blows his brother a kiss.


	38. Look up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt #38: Trick or treat!

The knock on their door is urgent, and both stare at the door like they’re not sure they heard quite right. Sam’s fingers have paused where they’d previously been typing on his laptop’s keyboard, and Dean closes the report he was reading. The table is covered with papers, food wrappers and case notes, dad’s journal in the middle, and a couple of beers are unopened on the side.    
They’ve been in the motel room all day, going out only to get food and snacks to eat while they work. The case is a tough one, little kids abducted and found dead days later in the woods. Animal attacks, that’s what the newspapers are saying, but nobody’s buying it because people spend their time hunting deer and bears and know what a wild animal can do and what it won’t do. People are on edge, and it makes the case tricky, because Sam and Dean may flash a badge people don’t know is fake, but they’re still strangers and it means no one trusts them. 

Which is why it’s more than a little surprising that someone comes knocking on their door when the sun is starting to set, and the streets are getting emptier by the minute. Dean grabs his gun where it’s been lying on his bed and takes careful and silent steps toward the door. He looks through the peephole and what he sees must satisfy him because he tucks his gun in the back of his jeans and throws Sam a look before he opens the door.   
Sam frowns from the table where he’s still sitting and cranes his neck to see past Dean once his brother has opened the door, but he doesn’t really need to see who’s there because the loud and boisterous “Trick or treat!” is enough to clue him in on what’s going on. October 31st. Right. 

They’re boys, two boys, one barely reaching the other’s elbows. The little one is wearing a Superman costume that’s a little too big on his frame, and that looks a little worn down, enough to know that he probably inherited it from an older sibling. Sam smiles because he knows the feeling all too well. The older boy is wearing a Batman costume, black cape and shirt and mask. They both look up with matching grins on their faces, the expression so similar that Sam can tell right away that they’re brothers.   
He can see Dean’s hand tightening on the door handle, and his brother has his back to him but Sam knows, can tell what’s going through Dean’s mind right now, because he’s thinking about it too. 

__ Bed sheets cut to make capes, garden gloves found in the shed in the backyard of the house dad’s renting for a couple weeks. Climbing on the shed. “Of course you can fly, you’re Superman!”. Adrenaline pumping through his system, fear when he falls instead of reaching for the clouds. Pain. Dean’s pale face. “Why did you jump Sammy?!”. The rush to the hospital, sitting on the handlebars of Dean’s bike. Dean’s voice in his ears the whole time. “S’okay Sammy, I got you, you’re gonna be fine, look up, t’is just like flying”.   
_ More tears. A cast on his arm. Dean gnawing on his bottom lip, still wearing his makeshift costume but Batman long forgotten. Pills making everything softer. Reaching for Dean’s hand and smiling and asking “Can we fly back too?” and Dean’s first shaky smile.   
_ __ "Yes, yes Sammy we can.”

There’s not a word coming out of Dean’s mouth as he scours the room for all the snacks they haven’t eaten yet. Sam watches him as he gathers everything, a pack of oreos, a small bag of M&M’s, two packs of gums, the cookies left in the pack they bought. The two boys are still at the front door, eager eyes following Dean and the little one is almost vibrating with excitement. Sam can only smile. Dean is back at the door barely a second after, giving away all their remaining snacks, a smile on his face. He ruffles Batman’s hair. 

“You boys aren’t alone, are you?”

“Mom’s waiting for us in the parking lot”, they both answer and Sam sees Dean looking up and apparently seeing the mother because he gives a cautious wave. 

“Good”, he nods before squeezing the younger boy’s shoulder. “Can you fly, Superman?” 

There’s a loud “YEAAAH!” and Sam just sees the boy running away, arms stretched by his side like a plane about to take off. His brother runs after him and Sam hears a “Wait for me Ryan!” before Dean shuts the door. He stays there for a second before he comes back to the small table. His gaze is soft when it meets Sam’s and Sam knows that Dean isn’t seeing a grown man in his thirties right now. Dean’s look is one of a big brother looking at his kid brother, it’s a look Dean often tries to hide from Sam but not now, not after this.

It’s fond and soft, almost nostalgic. Sam rubs at his arm and Dean’s eyes track the movement. They both remember. Of course they do. They stay silent but when Dean reaches for his beer, Sam grabs one too and they click them together before taking the first gulp. It says more than words ever could. 


	39. Seconds' thief

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt #39: Drunken cuddles

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suggested by @itsabrilliantnoiseilovethatnoise on tumblr

He’s too drunk and he hates this, how even in his state he has enough brain cells left to know that he won’t remember any of this, that if he wakes up he’ll be confused and a bit lost, taste of ashes in his mouth and a mean pounding in his skull. But the memories will be like papers soaked with rain, ink so smeared there’s nothing left to read. Sam won’t understand how it came to this, to him and Dean sprawled on the same bed, Dean with his back right against Sam’s chest, with Sam’s hand right around his waist, with his fingers right between Sam’s. He won’t remember him and his brother, drunk beyond words, and just… cuddling. That’s why tragedies are written. **  
**

Sam hates it. He fights against the fog in his brain but he can’t do anything against how delicious it feels, to have Dean this close, where he can touch all of Dean’s skin without getting his hands batted away, without feeling the muscles tensing underneath the skin, because in his brother’s mind it’s being weak to allow others near your skin, to allow touches to be soft and gentle, and to enjoy them. Sam would spend hours just touching if he could. He lightly trails his fingers down Dean’s arm and sees the goosebumps he leaves behind, almost gasps when Dean just wiggles closer, spine melting right against Sam’s chest.  
Sam’s dizzy, and it has nothing to do with Tequila.

He hates that when Dean giggles he can’t steal the sound that just left his brother’s lips and bury it forever in the darkest parts of his chest. He won’t remember that giggle, and he clings to it with all he’s got but all he can manage is a weak giggle of his own, because alcohol makes everything softer and apparently funnier. Time passes, and Sam’s eyelids flutter. The room is spinning and he can’t keep his eyes open, even if he wants to, so badly. They’re almost silent now, and Sam doesn’t remember what happened to lead them to this. But Dean is there, warm right against Sam’s chest, and nothing else matters.

Dean snorts and twists his head to be able to catch Sam’s gaze, forcing Sam to blink his eyes open, to steal a few more seconds. It feels like a punch to Sam’s guts when their eyes meet. There isn’t a single frown line on Dean’s face, not anything stopping that carefree grin to shape Dean’s lips like the most beautiful heartbreak Sam’s ever seen. Dean looks about four years old.

Dean looks happy. Sam isn’t sure the two sentences don’t mean the exact same thing.  If he could pick just one moment to die for, Sam would pick this one. This, only this, forever.

They fall asleep in a tangle of limbs, Sam spooning his big brother but Dean’s the one holding him. They fall asleep deliriously in love, soft timeless smiles on their faces and drunk on each other’s proximity. They fall asleep together.


	40. Loverboy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt #40: Monster said so

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suggested by @tipsysam on tumblr

Monster said so.  
Weirdo, weirdo, weirdo. It rings in your empty chest, ricochets against your ghost ribs. You crumble like a forgotten god, and walk inside the ruins of the temple where you used to be something holy. Monster sneers where it’s curled down your deepest hollows. There’s nothing about you worth worshiping. You look down at your bony wrist, at the skin stretched paper thin over your skeleton. Your body is sharp angles and you can hide behind the locks of hair that fall on your forehead but what you want to escape from is nestled behind your eyelids. You bite on your lips and taste blood on your tongue. _Loverboy_ , Monster purrs. How could love look so much like decay?

The one you want to touch doesn't love you or that sickness pumping through your veins. It's not his  love you can see in his eyes but just a twisted reflection of your own. You’re just as blind as you wishes he weren’t. It's devastating, how cold you feel. And Monster rises up your throat, coils around your vocal cords like a snake, tight, tighter. There are no words anyway. He’s untouchable, golden idol you’d desecrate with the barest touch, a burning light and you’re a moth desperate to fly right to your death, dust wings bursting into flames the minute you’re finally close enough. It’s not worth living for but hell, it’s worth dying for. He’s worth everything, the vowel in your name and the dimples in your cheeks. He’s worth your worst nightmares and the moonlight crescents left by your fingernails in your palms.

Monster said so. You're a freak, lovesick puppy gnawing on his own bones and chasing after its rotting tail. Run all you want, but your agony will follow you to your grave. It sinks beneath your skin and the dove wings you graced your eyelids with flutter wet and sad, skyless birds for a hopeless boy. You’re in love, you want to hear his laugh and share his dreams. You want to die mid-kiss and trail your fingers on the back of his knees. You want him to take you, anyway he wants, anywhere he wants, to forget about the blood that ties you together and just hold your hips hard enough to leave dark bruises. You want his hands, you want his shoulders, you want his eyes and his teeth. You want it all, all of it, all for you, you want to be selfish. Monster chuckles before it plants its claws into your heart.

There is beauty in how you love. How you let your lugs rot inside your chest and you insides twist. There's a pathetic delicacy in how you kneel at his feet, ashamed on the battlefield of a war you never fought. You shake like a leaf under his gaze, winter cold words reaching your ears and it hurts from your toes to your fingers, desperation dripping down your throat. There is not an ounce of pride you wouldn't let go of. You'll be the ugliest you can be if it means his hand holding yours. It's tragic, the pounding in your skull whenever he says your name, and a miracle that it rolls off his tongue without making his lips curl with disgust. He doesn’t love you, not like you want him to. Never like you want him to.

Monster said so. The ones that lives down your stomach, that mocks you whenever you allow yourself to hope there is a cure for what you are. But there is no miracle to wait for, no salvation for that graveyard type of love, just the hope of a quick painless death. You’ve got a long life ahead of you afterall.  
Death kisses your cheeks, no one ever loved you more.  
Monster said so. You said so. 


	41. Sail

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt #41: letters

I don’t really know what I’m doing so bear with me please. I’m going to skip the niceties because you’ll never read this anyway. I started to see a psychologist. Yeah, I know, hilarious. I have no doubt it would make you laugh. I can almost see your eyeroll. Kinda wish I could. 

I tried to call you on your birthday. I know you wouldn’t have picked up, this year more than ever, but I just wanted to leave you a message. They told me the number had been disconnected. I guess I should have seen that coming. And I probably shouldn’t tell you this - although, again, it’s not like you’ll read this anyway, but I cried. I hadn’t cried since I was a kid and yet I couldn’t stop. Because I didn’t even have your voicemail anymore. How fucking stupid. That’s when I decided I should give this whole therapy thing a go, I think. 

You told me that night when I left that I was a coward and I guess this letter is another proof, if anyone needed any, that you were right. I know you didn’t mean it but fuck, out of all the things you’ve ever said to me, I remember this one the most. I wish happiness left scars as easily. I know you didn’t mean it Dean. I swear to god. I know. 

But I need help. So I found Mariah. She’s working on campus to help students who are a bit lost about their orientation but she’s also there for us, as people. Not just students. So I decided to give it a try. I know she can’t fully understand because there are things I will never be able to talk to her about. The monsters, hunting, what it did to our family, to us. But still, I stick to the truth as much as I can and there’s already a lot. Mom, the fire, growing up on the road, dad’s absences, you. 

I didn’t want to tell her anything about you at first. But funny thing is, I realized I didn’t have much left to talk about. Everything was always linked to you, in a way. Even the most personal things, even my deepest thoughts, all of them, they all lead to you. And when my psychologist asked me if I resented you for it, you know what I did? I laughed. I laughed so hard I started crying. And then I don’t really know if I was still laughing or if I was just crying. 

So anyway, this letter is some sort of an assignment. I’m supposed to write to people I feel I have “unfinished business” with. It’s a little funny given our line of work. Usually it’s the dead that have unfinished business with the living…

Things I should have told you back then: 

  * I’m sorry
  * I forgive you
  * Please come with me



I didn’t say any of it. And there’s a little voice in the back of my head that keeps asking “what if?”. And that’s the killer part isn’t it? Because I’ll never know. I’ll never know what you think about all this, I’ll never know if you’re still mad, I’ll never know if you forgave me. Hell, I don’t even know where to send this. What’s heaven’s zipcode anyway?

I haven’t talked to dad since he called to tell me what happened. I think we don’t have much left to say to each other. It was always you Dean. Always. And I’m so sorry. 

Sam


	42. Four, you and me. Five, am I still alive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt #42: Last rites

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suggested by @wincestismyclarity

It’s unconventional but Sam doesn’t really stop to think about it much. Hasn’t thought about anything in days, if he’s completely honest. The sleepless nights kissed bruises under his eyes, but he can’t afford to wait anymore.  There aren’t many things in the lore about this. Or in dad’s journal. It’s simple enough, but nothing’s ever been so difficult. He built the pyre, he has the salt, the gasoline. He has everything ready, and yet. That’s not what Sam wants to do. 

He doesn’t want Dean’s soul to ascent to heaven, doesn’t want him to be absolved of the countless sins he did while alive. At the moment, there’s only one thing he wants, _needs_ , and it’s his brother. He wants Dean, because he doesn’t know how to be alive when Dean isn’t. Most days his legs feel too heavy, lost because they’ve always followed Dean’s footsteps and refuse to find their own way in this world. sure, he can. But he doesn't want to. Sam’s hollows grow inside his chest, gnaw on his bones and his heart. He doesn’t want any of this. 

So he spills his milkshake all over the front seat of the car.  
It dribbles rosebud pink all over the leather, the nauseating smell invading the car in a way that’s sure to linger for weeks. The sun is hitting the windshield hard enough that it’s gonna dry quickly and leave sticky patches behind. Sam can not  _ wait _ . He watches in a detached way as the fat drops of milk drop to the floor, sinks in the creases of the seat. It's disgusting and horrific and just what Sam was aiming for. It's revolting. 

The stereo is the next step, and Sam doesn’t feel half as bad plugging his Ipod jack in the stereo than he did spilling the milkshake. He does wonder if it wouldn't have been better to destroy all the tapes but in the end, he thinks it might be more insulting to play crap music in a beautiful car. He plays with his Ipod for a second until he finds what he’s looking for, and barely a second later Bono’s voice is blasting from the speakers. 

“ _ You hear me Sam?, come on stop giggling, fuck, how wasted are you? Keep walking. No not that way. No one, NO ONE, - oh hey look! A cat! Shit, I think I forgot the umbrella I had in my cocktail. I hate cats. Fuck, how do you even know what a daiquiri is?! What was I saying? Oh yeah, right. No one, is as much of a douche as Bono is. Mark my words Sammy, if the world ends - again - it’ll be because of U2. Oh hey look, my umbrella!” _

It’s not apocalypse worthy but it’s loud enough to make Sam cringe. He doesn’t really give a shit about U2, but right now it’s more Dean’s hate for it that matters.  He waits for a couple minutes, waits until one song fades and another begins, and when nothing happens he sighs and draws out the big guns. He hates himself for it but he hasn’t got much of a choice. As last rites go, this one sure as hell won’t bring peace to Dean’s soul. 

The key weighs a ton but his hand isn’t shaking when he holds it right against the upholstery and drags it. The noise is as horrible as the sight, but Sam doesn’t stop. He drags the key against the black paint and leaves an ugly scratch behind.  Sam’s been digging up corpses since he was sixteen but it’s the first time he feels like he’s desecrating a grave. But the Impala stays a silent graveyard, and nothing happens. There’s no wind, there’s no cold spot, there’s no goosebumps raising on Sam’s skin. There’s nothing but sunshine and grief, cicadas enjoying the summer day, and a pyre ready to burn.

The matches are in Sam’s pocket but he still can’t, can’t without one last try, because he’d rather be haunted than empty. Sacraments aren’t supposed to go this way, but Sam could care less. He gets his knife and opens the back door, stares at it for a minute, throat closing up and eyes welling up with tears. This has to be it, it has to happen now. 

“Please”, is all he whispers and it sounds like “Amen”, because this is Sam’s last confession. He digs the blade into the ashtray and moves it from side to side, slowly but surely dislodging the toy soldier that has been stuck there for an eternity.  The green army man falls to the floor, and Sam stares at the empty ashtray. Dean doesn’t come back. Dean is not gonna come back.  

The tears rolls down Sam’s cheeks but the wind stays silent. 


End file.
